FIFA: The plot thickens

By Brian Glanville, World Soccer

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HAVE THE Blatterists, alias the snouts in the trough supporters of Sepp Blatter, dropped the mask and showing their ugly faces? The news that the bold and upright Michael Zen-Ruffinen has been threatened out of attending last weekend's conference of the ineffable CONCACAF body in Miami suggests as much.

Zen-Ruffinen has had the gall, or the guts, to sue loveable Jack Warner, CONCACAF's domineering president, and plumb Chuck Blazer, his American general secretary, for refusing to withdraw the fatuous allegation that he as FIFA secretary is trying to drum up support for Blatter's presidential opponent, Issa Hayatou.

"People," says Zen Ruffinen, "have become like madmen." Or criminal operators, desperately clinging on to their perks and privileges.

Meanwhile, it's sad to see as respected a figure as Joseph Antoine Bell, former Cameroon goalkeeper (dropped at the last moment in the 1990 World Cup for rebuking his corrupt federation), declaring that Hayatou isn't ready on the grounds, it seems, that he started his campaign too late.

The important point is that he started it all; and isn't Blatter. Who has now trained his guns on the powerful South Korean, Chung Mong-Joon, who leads the Korean organising World Cup committee. Here, The 51 bad new ideas a day man may well prove to have bitten off more than he can chew. Yet there are still enough minnows among football countries to be brought into line.

LUCKY Gerard Houllier, who as a French manager should surely have known better. Nicolas Anelka has broken cover before Liverpool could foolishly make his presence permanent.

On loan from Paris Saint Germain, who cannot wait to unload him, preferably for £5 million, Anelka has demanded £3 million a year from Liverpool, or rather, his delightful brother-agents have. Did Houllier really think that his club could fare any better with this incorrigible maverick than Paris SG (twice), Arsenal and Real Madrid?

THE apparent liaison between these two contrasting Swedes, Sven Goran Eriksson and Ulrika Jonsson, adds to the harmless stock of public pleasure though it surely hasn't done much for Eriksson's sober public image.

His predecessors as England managers, such as Walter Winterbottom, Alf Ramsey, Don Revie, Ron Greenwood, Graham Taylor, were all solidly married men. Sweden, that strange country, has long oscillated between the prim and the promiscuous, the second having surely come as a reaction to the first. Far be it for me to mention the male menopause, but something of the sort seems to be playing a part. Bobby Robson? Yes, well.

STRANGE that on the eve of the Chelsea-Manchester United game, that gifted but star crossed goalkeeper Mark Bosnich, now in the shadows at Stamford Bridge, should suddenly have let fly at Alex Ferguson.

His chief charge, that Ferguson is no great tactician, is balanced by his acknowledgment that Ferguson knows how to pick a player; why, even Lauren Blanc looked good in that 3-0 win. Yet much the same could have been said of the grand progenitor of United's fortunes, Ferguson's fellow Scot, Matt Busby.

This season, Ferguson made a horrible hash of his European tactics by playing just one man up for so long. Even in his winning European Cup final, he inexplicably used Ryan Giggs on the right for much of the game, deploying the ineffectual Blomqvist on the left.

A NEW five-year contract for Claudio Ranieri? I wish him and Chelsea well, but am slightly bewildered by such faith and largesse. True, Barcelona are said to have wanted him, true, after that shaky semifinal display, he could win the FA Cup, but so did Luca Vialli, now at daggers drawn with Ken Bates. And hard on the heels of the semis came that collapse against United.

Brian Glanville is Britain's most celebrated football writer. He also writes a monthly column in World Soccer magazine.

His latest book, a fully updated edition of THE STORY OF THE WORLD CUP is available in all good bookshops. Readers of worldsoccer.com can buy this highly-acclaimed history of the World Cup and enjoy a 10% discount by clicking here.