2018 and all that

FIFA.

What does it stand for?

Foreign Infidels Fixing Association. The Fuck It Financial Alliance. Football Is Feeling Ashamed. I dunno. Every time this country puts in a bid to host the World Cup you get the impression that the last place folks want the tournament to be hosted is the country with the perfect infrastructure in place.

These revelations that a couple of blokes might have up for the odd sweetener are about as surprising as discovering that Nick Clegg is a smug unctuous deceitful public school git. In both cases we kind of always knew.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that FIFA is corrupt to its core. But only cos there might be one or two lawyers cruising the mean streets of this particular blogosphere looking for a way to screw an innocent slanderer of his hard-earned cash.

World governing body Giant Sepp Blatter's pulled in the 'ethics committee' with his fairy-tale cry of 'FIFA-fo-fum, I smell the blood of a Tahitian.'

Yes, one of the (possibly) guilty men who FIFA have suspended is from that hot-bed of footballing fervour, Tahiti. Ta-fecking-hiti. I mean I’m all for everyone having a say, but even Wigan Athletic haven’t tracked down the Tahitian Maradona yet, so I doubt there is one. I’d be all for some grass-skirted woman’s footy team, mind.....



Sorry drifted off there...

The other fella was Nigerian. That round-robin e-mail entitled WORLD CUP VOTE FOR SALE was not the wisest idea. Although there’s bound to be some provincial town council that’s fallen for it and lost ten grand on the deal.

The latest spat with the Russians is just marvellous. Some bloke called the England 2018 bid “absolutely primitive" and "comical". Which would be fine if he was describing our centre-forward.

Now I’m not the sort of shaven-headed twat who tattoos the Union Jack on his arse and whose greatest desire would be to go down on our beloved Queen but I do take a big slab of umbrage when someone starts slagging off our attempt to host the greatest sporting tournament there is.

There were also some references to the fact that all our young people get hammered, and violent, and the country is uncivilized. Which made me want to find the bastard and tip my pint over his head.

I’ve seen enough about Russia on the telly to know that when it comes to getting pissed on clear liquids which are indistinguishable from meths your Russian fella takes some beating. I mean for Chrissakes they elected the biggest pisshead in world politics as their leader. Yeltsin! Why would anyone choose to have a bumbling white-haired numpty in charge? If you’re a Londoner you will be able to answer this question.



Of course Putin’s appeared in public looking more orange than a Teesside beauty on a Friday night cos it appears he’s covering up a massive shiner. Lovely David Cameron would never appear in public-looking like that (unless perhaps I happened across him).

Oh and we have, apparently, got a problem in this country with racism. This is a Russian talking. From Russia, that bastion of political correctness. I mean I know for a fact that Joe Stalin had an enormous back-catalogue of early Malian music and was a devotee of Gujurati cooking.

Me, I hope England do win the race. But there’s one thing counting against us. (Apart from, obviously, that the streets of our cities are rife with criminals, drunks and Neanderthals). England is the perfect bail-out country should the wheels come off when Russia or whoever gets the bid.

We are Plan B, Unless the mere touch of Becks’s lapel has turned Blatter into a giddy girl. But I doubt that. I don’t see how Spain/Portugal can get 2018 and Qatar 2022 now without a shedload of derision and suspicion. But I reckon Russia might get it, if only cos Sepp likes to imagine that he’s spreading the gospel of footy around a bit rather than making sure that the best prepared country gets the deal.

Meanwhile, the citizens of Teesside are eagerly awaiting Tony Mowbray’s first game in charge at the Riverside. Mowbray’s promised to give the players he didn’t pick much at Celtic a fair crack at the whip. Don’t fret, Tony, pet. They’ve not been up to much so far.

But even if the downward spiral continues I don’t think we’ll be getting on Tony’s back too much. He’s Boro through and through. His Dad was a steelworker, he can still smell the Bovril from his time on the Ayresome terraces. It’s not in the nature of a Teessider to get too sentimental about owt, but having a bloke in the manager’s chair who grew up watching the club does make you want to embrace the man in a butch and purely platonic way.



And I’d rather Tone than that arch seat-hopper Sven-Goran Eriksson. You can’t help liking old Sven but my God the man’s been round more blocks than a dustbin lorry. And his main talent appears to be doing the old press conference chat like a kind of Swedish Des Lynam.

Leicester fans would of course have preferred O’Neill to return in Tigger-mode to the Walkers Stadium touchline, but they may as well whistle for the return of a lithe twenty-something crisp-finisher like Lineker.

Sousa did his best, but Swiss defender Bruno Berner’s suggested that the Portuguese had them playing too much 4-3-3 and maybe ‘passing the ball a bit too much’. Ah, Bruno. Two years you’ve been here and you’re already thinking like an Englishman.

But any road, the Boro have got one our own in charge. And life feels just slightly more bearable.