The World Cup bidding debacle that’s so enraged English football was, as votes go, transparent as mud. But there was no mistaking the FIFA message: a flagrant two fingers to their critics.
Since Sepp Blatter literally laughed out loud at Ireland’s request to be the 33rd team at last summer’s finals in South Africa following the play-off fiasco in Paris, his already-tenuous association with the concept of fair play has been torn to shreds in these plainly unimportant parts.
For all our overly-righteous indignation at the time, the sickeningly condescending way we were treated showed that the ‘fathers of football’ don’t give a tuppenny damn about basic decency or the little guys who are tolerated purely to make up the numbers. Might is the only right on FIFA’s moral compass.
