The ugly game

What a terrific summer of sport it’s been: a wonderful Wimbledon, a rollicking Royal Ascot, an absorbing Ashes series that still has the best part of two Tests to go. And now along comes football, barging its way on to the back pages, shoving the other sports aside, sniggering all the way to the bank.

Every August, the ‘beautiful game’ reasserts itself as the playground bully. Football is the most popular sport in this country — and the nastiest. It has become a cesspit of greed, debauchery and racism, especially in Britain. It is crude and overbearing and has all the subtlety of a disco at Holy Communion.

I feel bad about this because I love football. It was the only thing at which I was reasonably good at school; a photo of me interviewing Bobby Charlton in the 1980s has pride of place at home and I even wrote a non-bestseller about the 1998 World Cup.

I spent decades defending football from those who thought the players were awful and their fans worse. I put that attitude down to snobbery; disdain for the simple pleasures of the working man.

Now I’ve given up. Football is rotten and there’s no point denying it any more. The penny dropped on seeing the footage of Souleymane Sylla, a black Frenchman on his way home from work in Paris, being pushed off a train by snarling Chelsea fans fuelled by drink and hate. The news played it over and over again after the men’s trial last month; it looked worse with each viewing.

Then Frankfurt and Leeds fans attacked each other on the pitch after what was meant to be a ‘friendly’ between the two sides, just before the Special One, Chelsea manager José Mourinho, called the Real Madrid manager Rafa Benitez a fatty and recommended that Mrs Benitez holds off on the sugar in her hubby’s coffee.