However, he sees himself playing a very different role than that of playmaker.

'Really my job is to act as a moderator. If anything, I'm actually like a good referee. Keeping things moving, ticking over and not taking centre stage unnecessarily,' Dykes said.

'The nature of football fans is such these days that all it takes is for you to say something complementary about Arsenal, and suddenly Liverpool fans jump on you for it. It's extraordinary how polarised things have become right now.

'As much as this world is heading in an opinionated, blogging direction, I do try my hardest to stay as un-opinionated as possible.'

Dykes, 43, will be the master of ceremonies at the HKFC Philips Lighting International Sevens dinner on May 22. He will be back on familiar turf as he has a strong affiliation with Hong Kong - one which began in 1981 when he visited his father who was a banker here.

'I went to Hong Kong after I finished up at school in England and only went out for a holiday but I loved it,' he said.

'I did a year of A-level retakes at South Island school and got the results I needed to go to the University of Warwick in England where I lasted just one year because I missed Hong Kong so much. But I worked in radio while I was at university and that convinced me I wanted to work in the media.'

Over the following years Dykes worked for the South China Morning Post, covering a range of subjects from sport to films. This provided his first break in television when he was asked to do some movie reviews for TVB Pearl.

It wasn't long though before he was back working in sport with the World Sport Group. He decided to work as a producer to learn the TV sports trade in depth and it made sense for him to present the programmes as well, so he did. Then in 1993, he moved to Star Sports and eventually it was goodbye Hong Kong.

'I'd spent 13 years working in Hong Kong but in 1997 Star Sports moved to Singapore which had originally been the base for ESPN Asia and it was decided the two form a joint venture called ESPN/Star Sports,' he said.

'I was asked to come down to Singapore and be their presenter. I accepted the offer and it has taken off from there. In 1997, I was the only presenter and now we have 37 full-time presenters.'

In that time he has covered everything from Wimbledon to the Masters at Augusta, but as the company expanded, the influx of new presenters was such that Dykes could finally concentrate solely on soccer. He has been the anchorman for their Premier League shows for the past sevens years - programmes that have generated a huge following all over Asia in that time.

Arguably the most popular of these is Football Focus where Dykes chairs a discussion on the weekend's events with regular panelists Paul Masefield, Jamie Reeves, former Liverpool star Steve McMahon and Shebby Singh.

'It's a format that works. We take it for granted that viewers have seen the weekend's action and all we're doing is having a chat about it,' he said

'Of course it's not as simple as that. Rather than just tee-off, we have a meeting before the show where we sit down with our producer and make sure everyone knows what the context for our chat will be and take it from there.'

Singh's comments in particular over the years have drawn scorn but Dykes defended his colleague.

'I do get annoyed when people try to belittle Shebby's credentials because no one should doubt his knowledge. He lives for football,' he said.

'I suspect he loves playing devil's advocate though. So if he wants to say that Steven Gerrard's best position is right back that's fine! It generated one of the most spectacular arguments ever in the studio.'

Another feature is the big names that have appeared on his programmes, although it does help if you've just been recently sacked by your club.

'It's a running joke,' he said. 'If a manager loses his job we're wondering when he'll be appearing on the show.'

Sven Goran Eriksson should be making an appearance very soon.