Football: A Family Game

Some football's happening tomorrow. I had quite forgotten that the season was still with us, and had all but forgotten that Capello and England any longer existed. But they do, and they're playing Switzerland. Has the FA's favourite gnome of Zurich, Sepp Blatter, been invited along for the prawn sandwiches, do you suppose?

Actual games of football no longer seem to matter. It's all the other stuff that is so entertaining, and some of it is in Spain. Take Real Mallorca. A team that can contrive to almost be relegated on the last day of the season, having spent the entire season in mid-table obscurity, takes some beating.

Dottiness is never far away from Real Mallorca, and now the club is seeking to become the Brentford of La Liga; major shareholder and vice-president Llorenç Serra Ferrer possibly taking over the coaching reins. Serra, the Ron Noades, chairman/team manager, of Spanish football. To be fair to Serra, he is actually a coach; Ron just lived his own odd dream.

Real Brentford, once described by Sid Lowe of "The Guardian" as "rubbish" and having no fans, charges which revealed that there were indeed some fans, as they leapt to the club's defence, has, despite nearly clutching relegation defeat from the victory of staying in La Liga, been honoured in Sid's annual Sids. Just. Two players, Nunes and De Guzmán, are on the subs bench for Lowe's team of the season. And De Guzmán's an interesting character. Is he Dutch, is he Jamaican, is he Canadian? What is he exactly? Owen Hargreaves with his knees still intact.

Far, far more interesting, however, are the shenanigans at the Banana Republic of FIFA, and its own Spanish connection. Blatter has proved, like Iran's Ahmadinejad and Belarus's Lukashenko, that a touch of pretend democracy can go a long way in keeping a dictator in power. The delegates walked up, two by two, entering the ark above the flood that never really threatened to wash Sepp away, and dropped their voting slips into the box, watched on by Sepp muttering, "there, now, you know you're doing the right thing".

Among the members of the FIFA "family" who turned on the bleating black sheep Bernstein of the English FA was another interesting character. Spain's very own Sepp: Ángel María Villar Llona, the president of the Spanish football federation. Villar Llona's been in power even longer than Blatter has. He's carved out his own fiefdom. And like Blatter, a certain amount of mud has attached itself to his hands and knees.

Back in November, a judge formally archived charges that had been open against Villar Llona for several years. Despite, I quote, "abominable management in accounting for trips, expenses and purchase of foreign currency" as well as various other criticisms, the judge found that the president and other directors of the federation should be absolved of charges of impropriety.

On being re-elected, yet again, as president in 2008, the head of La Liga said of Villar Llona's re-election that this would mean "the union between all the families of football". Football certainly is a family game, and "allegations", that "beautiful English word", as Villar Llona taunted the FA with, should not be made about families.

In the 2008 election, when he was unopposed, Villar Llona polled 87% of the votes, a bit short of the 92% Blatter secured in Zurich, but pretty good going after 20 years. There was clearly no problem for him in that, two years before, he had managed to stun delegates at a UEFA conference by arguing that too much attention was being paid to racism in football.

It should have come as no great surprise that Villar Llona joined the queue to give the FA a good kick in the shins in Zurich. During the gathering to divvy up the spoils of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, Villar Llona, rounding on those accusing FIFA of corruption (i.e. the British media), said: "FIFA is clean and does things with honesty. All of you (members of FIFA) are honest and hard-working and are concerned only for football".

Ah, the beautiful game, the beautiful family game, adorned by Messi, Xavi, Iniesta and Guardiola's wonderful Barcelona. But even Barça can't avoid being dragged in. Villar Llona has spawned a word. "Villaroto". José Mourinho has used it, the Madrid football papers have used it. It refers to the alleged bias of the Barça-supporting president against Real Madrid.

Barça, more than a club. Football, more than a game. I nearly forgot, there's one on tomorrow.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.