Blatter under attack from all quarters

By Brian Glanville, World Soccer

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LET US, for the sake of argument, assume that Sepp Blatter survives not only the withering blast from Ken Bates in last Saturday's Chelsea program ("Even the monkey from Hartlepool would be an improvement") but the presidential election itself, what sort of a president could he possibly be?

Discredited to a degree. "Under his leadership," thundered Bates, "FIFA does little or nothing for football but is strong on bungs, bribes, junketing and extravagance."

With criminal proceedings in Switzerland looming, how much liberty of action could Blatter enjoy? And what for that matter would be the public profile of FIFA, exposed as an organization steeped in what Bates calls "rotten and corrupt," the supporters of Blatter, whether they be individuals or federations, perceived as no more than greedy beneficiaries.

Jack Warner might well be a little unhappy, too. Meanwhile, Sepp seems up to every dodge imaginable; including that jamboree financed for Roger Milla in Cameroon.

AFTER that horrific riot after the Millwall-Birmingham City game, the Metropolitan Police have demanded compensatory payments from Millwall, with the threat that if they don't get them, they will withdraw their safety certificate and thus render games at The New Den impossible.

Whether they can legitimately do that I'm not sure. But certainly Millwall were out of their minds not to ban Birmingham supporters (themselves all too appallingly in action last weekend at Weston-Super-Mare en route to the playoff final) while the police themselves were seriously under strength. Just some 250 of them initially to confront, however bravely, an estimated 900 rabid hooligans.

In addition the police want to ban all away fans from Millwall, which seems sensible enough, and to ban Millwall fans from going to away games. Since the draconian answer is probably to close down The New Den altogether, it's no surprise that Millwall haven't been objecting to this.

BUT talking of hooligans, what possessed the Germans first to sentence a vicious thug to a mere five years for battering, over fully 20 minutes, with a variety of weapons, a wholly innocent French gendarme in Lens during the 1998 World Cup, then not only to let him out in a mere three years, but give him the right to attend football matches abroad without let or hindrance?

No wonder our own police, who have bent themselves into shapes to stop hooligans from travelling, are appalled.

As you may have guessed, Markus Warnece is a brutal neo-Nazi with plenty of form. No doubt he would have flourished among Hitler's storm troopers not least as, in the years before the Fuhrer came to power, the so-called S.A. would literally get away with murder.

A GREAT day last weekend for Luciano Pavarotti, or so one assumed, even if he pulled out of the New York opera. For Modena, his home city team, the team with which, believe it or not, he once played as a left half, have at long last returned to Seri A after nearly four decades.

Shall we see the great tenor, now enormously larger than in his playing days, attend their first League game when next season comes?

THE long and the short of it you might well say, watching the increasingly effective pairing of Aston Villa's Peter Crouch, 6' 6" and 21, and the electric Darius Vassell, a major hope for the World Cup.

Crouch is only 21, spotted as a youth by Gerry Francis at QPR, following Gerry to Spurs, who never gave him a game, back to impress at QPR yet ignored when at bargain "fire sale" price by all the Premiership clubs. So it was Portsmouth who signed him and made the profit -- deservedly.

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.