Who'll win the World Cup then? Easy.

19-06-2006

Which ever one of the 32 competing nations holds the trophy aloft on July 9, tournament organisers FIFA are guaranteed to emerge victorious by raking in millions of pounds at the expense of fans who want nothing more than the chance to see their country in action.

Take the hundreds of Dutch fans who turned up in Stuttgart the other day to watch their team play the Ivory Coast and faced an official ultimatum - take off your trousers or go home.

“Die Oranjie” as Holland's supporters are known were wearing, appropriately enough, orange lederhosen provided by a Dutch brewer called Bavaria.

Over-zealous stewards reckoned that might offend tournament sponsors Budweiser and told the fans they had to watch the match in their underpants or risk missing it altogether.

This all begs the question of what FIFA is for.

Certainly not to arrange major tournaments in the interests of the fans.

Each competing team was allocated just 8% of the stadium for their three group matches.

For well-supported nationslike England that was ludicrously low, and it means that the supporters of competing teams are (officially at least) outnumbered almost two to one by sponsors and their guests.

And who might those sponsors be then?

Why, none other than those well-known guardians of health and fitness McDonalds and Coca-Cola who are both among the 15 firms in FIFA's inner circle who have sponsored the tournament.

By squeezing ticket supply the game's world governing body simply guarantees a booming black market - of which at least one of their executive members was only too happy to take advantage.

Ismail Bhamjee, Botswana's FIFA representative, has admitted selling World Cup tickets at three times face value.

But the malaise runs deeper than one dodgy individual.

Take FIFA's claim that it “actively combats discrimination”.

No it doesn't. Not in the case of Iran anyway, where half the population - women - are banned from football stadiums.

It's as blatant a case of discrimation as you'll find anywhere, yet there's no suggestion that its team will be kicked out of the tournament or face any sanction at all.

FIFA's real success isn't in fighting discrimination of course - it's in generating cash.

Last year it made profits of £94 million, and World Cup 2006 rights have brought in a cool $1billion.

No wonder they've been able to afford to move into swanky new offices in Zurich.

All hail their president Sepp Blatter - leader of football's world champion money makers.