After Sepp Blatter’s fall, Lionel Messi and Andrea Pirlo can at least remind us how beautiful football is supposed to be

It falls to me to shed light on the irony of these two teams starring in this Saturday night spectacle at this particularly noxious time
Juventus were found the most guilty of the Italian clubs caught up in a match-fixing scandal just nine years ago
Barcelona are reaping the whirlwind of alleged tax frauds involving Lionel Messi and Neymar
Getting Sepp Blatter falls a long way short of being the panacea for all football’s ills which the public have been misled into believing it would be
The tentacles of fraud and corruption are everywhere

Published:
20:37 GMT, 4 June 2015

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Updated:
08:17 GMT, 5 June 2015

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There is a quaint, romantic but unfortunately naive notion that a beautiful game of football in Berlin this Saturday will purify football of the corruption crisis which is engulfing FIFA, its president Sepp Blatter and the next two World Cups.

The rationale here is that the event in question is the Champions League final, the jewel in the crown of UEFA, whose own president Michel Platini is the favourite to succeed Herr Blatter in Zurich.

Let us permit Eric Cantona, iconic French footballer and fellow countryman of Monsieur Platini, to put this rather skewed concept into context far more eloquently than we mere hacks ever could.

‘Choosing between Blatter and Platini,’ says Cantona, ‘is like choosing between the plague and cholera.’

Sepp Blatter (left) shakes hands with Michel Platini after being elected to his fifth term as FIFA president

Eric Cantona, on set for his latest film, has shed a new light on the unique qualities of both men

Since, at the time of going to press, Eric the Incorrigible had not made a choice between Barcelona and Juventus it falls to me to shed light on the irony of these two teams starring in this Saturday night spectacle at this particularly noxious time.

Juventus, you may recall, were found the most guilty of the Italian clubs caught up in a match-fixing scandal just nine years ago. As reigning champions they were relegated from Serie A and fined to the hilt, while a posse of their officials were rounded up and banned from the game.

Barcelona are reaping the whirlwind of alleged tax frauds involving Lionel Messi and Neymar, no less. Barca’s president was obliged to resign last year, they were fined millions of pounds and banned from signing players during 14 months and two transfer windows.

Getting Blatter – as so many were salivating to do, especially in the US and here in England – falls a long way short of being the panacea for all football’ s ills which the public have been misled into believing it would be.

The scale of the cancer infecting the game has been obscured by that feeding frenzy.

The tentacles of fraud and corruption are everywhere. Images of Premier League footballers committing gross acts of pornography are filmed and posted on social media. An Arsenal and England player celebrates winning the FA Cup by chanting obscene abuse at rivals Tottenham.

Jack Wilshere led the crowd in a number of anti-Tottenham songs during Arsenal’s FA Cup parade

Alexis Sanchez and Wilshere celebrate after thrashing Aston Villa 4-0 in the FA Cup final

Opportunist politicians Boris Johnson and John Whittingdale, the new minister for sport and culture, make grabs for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups before a decision on removing those tournament from Russia and Qatar is even considered, let alone taken. Thereby they harden the suspicion abroad that England and the US have put the boot into FIFA out of sour grapes for the failure of their own bids for those events. Thus they deepen the overseas resentment of perceived English arrogance.

Careful, there are a few skeletons in the FA cupboards. The preposterous but dangerous figure of arrested whistle-blower Jack Warner among them.

There are precious few winners in The Fall of the House of Blatter.

The Feds and the US prosecutors are posturing with their trophy arrests – like big-game hunters – but questions are being asked as to why they have not applied the same time and rigour to catching bankers whose immoral mortgage practices have ruined the lives of millions on both sides of the Atlantic.

They cite FIFA bribes totalling £100million during 20 years. Frauds totalling a lot more than that are said to be committed every day on Wall Street and our Square Mile.

So if, as Cantona proclaims so colourfully, Platini is a contagion then who the hell is the right man, or woman, to take over from Blatter?

Blatter leaves FIFA HQ after surprisingly announcing he will resign from football’s governing body

Jordanian Prince Ali bin Al-Hussein stood against Blatter in the recent election, but is he fit to run the body?

Can anyone in football be considered squeaky clean?

If David Beckham is making a sly pitch himself now by lambasting FIFA and its out-going president then why didn’t he have the guts to speak out before Blatter quit, instead of doling out smiles, shirts and autographs to the old hierarchy?

Spare me. And spare us David Ginola and Luis Figo while we’re at it.

There is a school of thought favouring an independent president from outside football. Really? Like who? A politician of convenience, a dodgy banker, a crafty lawyer, a slippery tycoon?

Or how about a leading administrator from some other sport? Maybe cricket, which can’t put its own house in order? Or athletics or cycling or rugby with their drugs culture? Or anyone from the International Olympic Committee which has recently come through its own Salt Lake City scandal?

Suggestions, on the back of a postage stamp please.

Meanwhile, the least that the gifted likes of Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez on one side and Andrea Pirlo, Paul Pogba and Carlos Tevez on the other can do for the game which enriches them is make a decent match of the 60th European Cup/Champions League final.

That may not solve any of the wider problems but at least it would remind us how beautiful football is supposed to be.

Andrea Pirlo is the orchestrator of much of Juventus’ attacks, but he will have his work cut out against Barca

Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi, not to mention Gerard Pique and Ivan Rakitic, are some of Barca’s weapons

Twenty years ago we ducked, covered our heads and counted ourselves lucky that none of the ripped-out seats or missiles made from torn-down fencing fractured our skulls or speared us through the chest.

England’s football hooligans had travelled in force to Dublin and ran riot at Lansdowne Road when David Kelly gave Ireland a first-half lead.

They also chanted ‘No surrender to the IRA.’

When Big Jack Charlton – the former England World Cup winner who had become manager of the Republic – appealed for calm they called him ‘Judas.’

With Ireland leading 1-0, the game was abandoned after 27 minutes. The home fans did not go quietly into the darkened streets, either. We walked back to the city centre through the debris of the fighting, negotiating drunks nursing cracked bones and bloody noses as we went.

Trouble erupts in the crowd during Ireland’s friendly with England 20 years ago at Lansdowne Road

A fuming Jack Charlton walks back to the dressing room following the abandonment of the game

This Sunday, Ireland and England will mark that anniversary by kicking off in the daylight of lunchtime. Known trouble makers will be prevented from crossing the Irish Sea.

Additional security precautions will be taken given what the police call ‘a deterioration in the behaviour of England fans’ in the last three or four matches abroad.

And Big Jack is going to call for peace again, only this time before the game.

Times – and attitudes – have changed down the last two decades. Mercifully so.

But it is well to remember that football hooliganism is only suppressed, not cured.