for the love of the game

Football - or at least FIFA, its ruling body - is in chaos. Sepp Blatter, newly re-elected president, refuses to see the crisis. ("Crisis, what is a crisis?" was his quote. Sepp, this is. When you are the reform candidate, this is a crisis.

World leaders from Kim Jong Il to - well, Kim Jong Il, have been congratulating Sepp on the manner of his re-election. Unopposed. Just the way it should be in a democratic institution. Gordon Brown was green with envy. One man one vote, that's FIFA. Shame the one man is Sepp Blatter.

The English FA tried to put it off... but they are hardly the whiter-than-whites here. Still, it was good of Julio Grondona, FIFA's senior Vice-President from Argentina, to make it clear that there was absolutely nothing wrong or corrupt about the voting procedure for this election, or for the selection of the host country in the 2018 & 2022 World Cup bids.

"With the English World Cup bid I said: 'Let us be brief. If you give back the Falkland Islands, which belong to us, you will get my vote'. They then became sad and left.''

Good to know it was all done on footballing matters. Goodness knows what he would've said if he had admitted they had actually let politics into the process. "Yes, I said we had a price - the Falklands, but it was too expensive. Maybe next time?" No hang on, I think he actually did say that. Proudly.

Still, the reforming Mr Blatter will sort that out.

Not.

The beautiful game. Russian oligarchs & Arab billionaires running clubs obsessed with vain playboy moneygrabbing oiks. Thank God we have Sepp Blatter. It could be worse.