Blatter has laughably taken Cristiano Ronaldo's side in his ongoing battle to leave Manchester United for Real Madrid just one year after signing a new five-year deal.

Holding Ronaldo to his contract is a form of slavery according to the FIFA chairman which must come as a bit of a shock to those helping to churn out footy shirts for 2p an hour in Asian sweatbox factories.

I don't know many professional businessmen, never mind slaves, who can earn £120,000 per week and yet I hope both sides of this particular saga come out badly.

Ronaldo is behaving like the petulant prat we all suspected he was, but United are just getting a rather hefty dose of their own medicine.

Didn't they employ the same tactics Madrid are using to unsettle Louis Saha at Fulham? And what a great waste of their time chasing that feeble-bodied forward that was.




FURTHER evidence of the madness currently afflicting football comes in the form of two proposed transfers.

Frank Lampard, who may be a bore with a great chip on his shoulder, but has scored a few goals and won a few pots in his time, is the subject of a £7.9 million bid from Inter Milan which is just £1.5 million more than what Fulham are apparently prepared to pay West Ham for Bobby Zamora.

Now Zamora may well be a better player than that nine foot tall Norwegian donkey who plays at the back at Craven Cottage, but he's pretty useless nonetheless.

I know Fulham chairman Mohammed Al Fayed is seen as eccentric in some quarters, but surely not even he's mad enough to sanction that deal.




WELL done again to the Football League for trying to ensure that cheats only prosper in parliament and not in our national game.

Luton Town starting next season on -30pts is about right in my book. Ignore what Hatters fans tell you, they gained an advantage by signing players in underhand ways – players that helped them maintain a false position in the Football League ladder for years.

FOR someone so huge and with such massive on-field presence, new England rugby union manager Martin Johnson is keeping a ridiculously low profile.

Two embarrassing defeats in New Zealand and an accompanying sex scandal and yet hardly a peep has been heard from the big man.

At least the disciplinary committee set up to discuss the players off-field activities gave me the biggest laugh of last week. There hasn't been a bigger whitewash since the Hutton Report.