30 November, 2010

The World Cup

There is talk that an investigation by British television reporters into alleged corruption in F.I.F.A. (Fédération Internationale de Football Association - why does it have a French name?) may lose Britain the opportunity to stage the World Cup in 2018. You might have thought that they'd be grateful to our chaps for rooting out corruption in their ranks, however no: they don't like being investigated, you see.

Why on earth didn't we think about this at the time of being awarded the Olympics? There is massive corruption in the International Olympic Committee and our journalists, with a bit of pot-stirring, could have saved us billions of pounds and got the thing won by the French.

'You cannot hope to bribe or twist
Thank God! The British journalist
But seeing what the man will do unbribed,
There's no occasion to.

(Humbert Wolfe)

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