Another half-baked idea from Blatter

JUST when you think you have heard it all, along comes a new FIFA proposal so daft it has sprouted bristles and swept away the little sense left in the world of football.

FIFA chief Sepp Blatter wants to extend half-time to 20 minutes. The idea is that more advertising breaks can be squeezed in for big televised games and the topic is to be brought at an international meeting in Belfast this week.

Now, these days the top-level game is a universe away from the sort played by flabby office workers on sleepy Sunday mornings.

But in the leagues I have played in, a five-minute turnaround is plenty enough to wolf down a few half-time oranges or, as on one memorable occasion, neck a can of special brew rescued from a previous night’s house party.

What on earth are you supposed to do with 20 minutes between halves? Lace your boots five times? Get through a few chapters of Crime and Punishment? Create a road map for peace in the Middle East?

Pity, too, those poor sad-faced apprentices who spend the half-time break poking around at divots in the ground, or the Polish student pie seller forced to continually explain in broken English why the kiosk ran out of hot food before kick-off. What of their five minutes of extra pain for minimal reward?

Those in favour of an extension from the present quarter-hour mark claim that players aren’t currently getting enough of a rest at some grounds, given the distance between playing area and dressing rooms.

But I have come up with a remedy for this that doesn’t involve making paying ice-cold spectators wait even longer between football fixes on chilly January nights: walk faster.

At least we in this country aren’t behind such a silly idea. Women playing football in hot pants, another of Blatter’s brainwaves, seems sedate in comparison.

And when even the Premier League — an institution so money-hungry it eats bank notes for breakfast — fails to support the move, you know for sure it is a giant step too far.


I’M THINKING of setting up an international cricket tournament.

Having been to the dentists to get my teeth whitened, I am currently in the process of cultivating a luxuriant moustache and have been doing hand exercises in order to firm up my grip.

A huge, gleaming smile, underneath a friendly lip slug and a handshake strong enough to fuse the knuckles of its recipient together: I am pretty much halfway there I reckon.

All that needs to be done now is to invent a massive paper value for Chambers Incorporated and get me a helicopter to whizz around in.

Anyone got a number for ECB chairman Giles Clarke?