If ever two rounds of FIFA World Cup South Africa 2010 Qualifiers demonstrated the utter and complete fake of the whole charade, these last two rounds were it.
The icing on an incredibly corrupt cake inevitably occurred at the Mall.
David Beckham performs no more than adequately for 32 minutes as a substitute, publicly displaying his new self-adhesive Dostoyevskian facial hair, and Steve Bruce, the man who still seems to think that Rio Ferdinand has his nose on the job, gives Our National Treasure the Man of the Match award.
Fabio Capello is correct to compare this nonsense to the Nobel Peace Prize given to the man who is about to authorise illegal bombing raids on Iran, after the necessary mainstream media psy-op's, of course.
Not only was this award plainly ludicrous - when Beckham's four best inputs were highlighted after the match, two of the passes failed to reach their target, one was made into a viable pass only by the recipient, and the other was a poor scuffed shot against the post - some people were financially compromised.
Anybody who entered the last ten minutes with a betting slip indicating Peter Crouch as Man of the Match was probably already spending their winnings when Bruce stepped in to give the bookies 100% of the book.
Exactly how many punters had bet on a substitute being Man of the Match?
Exactly.
One of my colleagues was so astonished on hearing the news, he insisted on phoning around other trading rooms in clarification.
But this is an idea that should be expanded upon.
When there is a dull and pointless show of xenophobia on the park, add some shine with an enhanced Man of the Match.
Where would England be without Sir Bobby Robson?
Include him on the roster.
Where would we all be without the Red Army and the Polish Resistance?
Sign up them too.
And if some X Factorette sends us victorious like a lark ascending via the national anthem, let her be involved as well.
In fact, monetise the whole process further by having a punter phone-in (fake obviously) so that we might all register our thoughts.
Before Steve Bruce hands over a blank cheque to the bookmakers.
But we should feel sorry for the layers as they have, after all, had rather a rough few days as insider trading spiralled entirely out of control in the Blattersphere.
Take Bulgaria.
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Now what is the reaction of FIFA and UEFA to such shenanigans?
And, how about the mainstream media?
Well, the former pair prefer focusing on criminalities lower down the hierarchy, a fact supported by the ongoing case against Macedonian side NK Pobeda, which has now reached the Court for Arbitration in Sport.
Bulgaria, like Romania, are in the EU and are geopolitically critical with regards to the gas pipelines being created to replenish our energy needs.
If their mafia rig football matches, who cares?
Ours do too.
Meanwhile the Daily Telegraph informs us in headline, not once but twice, that Berbatov scored a hat-trick for Hungary last night.
Finger on the pulse, as ever...
All of the following matches incorporated insider gambling that was successful in these final World Cup Qualifiers:
Ukraine v England
England v Belarus
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Azerbaijan v Russia
Cyprus v Bulgaria
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Bulgaria v Georgia
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Lithuania v Serbia
In this last affair, it was a Bulgarian referee, Mr Genov, who gave the Lithuanians their two match winning penalties.
Or, in Baku, who exactly was so confident that Russia wouldn't win that they were willing to drive the market from -2.0 supremacy, all the way down to just three-quarters of a goal differential?
The Asian markets on the England v Belarus match only opened eight hours prior to the match kicking off #########################################################
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We look forward to the administrative bodies exploring who was behind these betting coups.
But we suspect that the same pyramid of myopia will exist as occurs in other areas of the sport.
Take racism.
Prior to these final rounds of matches, the Serbian FA were informed that there would be points reductions for any further examples of racist chanting.
This had everything to do with Blatter's absolute determination to rid the game of racist abuse and nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that France were sitting in 2nd place.
Similar threats were not made to, for example, the Spanish FA or the Ukrainian FA.
Arbitrary rules, changed as the needs be, in order to create the necessary marketing paradigm.
What is the point in these qualifiers if FIFA are going to pick and choose anyway?
And, while we are at it...
What is the point of Qualifying matches being run as private betting markets?
And what is the point of giving the Man of the Match award to an overrated has-been, who can't hack it on the soccer fields of the HyperImperium, but who is vital to the World Cup Marketing Dream and England's 2018 bid?
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