PRAY SOUTH AFRICA WAS CLEAN

GIANNI INFANTINO, we are told, is very committed to football reform. So committed, that if his boss at UEFA, Michel Platini, can somehow wriggle out of the ban he has received pending an investigation into £1.35million of misappropriated FIFA funds, he will stand aside to allow him to run for FIFA president. You can’t beat commitment like that.

Also committed is another presidential FIFA candidate, Sheik Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa. He’s committed to protesting his innocence against allegations that he as good as served up Bahraini athletes for torture following the 2011 pro- democracy demonstrations.

Fortunately, there is Tokyo Sexwale (right), a multi-millionaire mining tycoon and ally of the late Nelson Mandela, who was a member of the bid team and organising committee for the 2010 World Cup. He appears to be the outstanding candidate, with no taint of corruption.

Unless FIFA’s stink wipes off on South Africa, too, of course. There are now various offices in the United States, Switzerland and elsewhere, sifting through details of recent World Cup bids for signs of corruption. And considering that was seemingly the only way FIFA did business for many decades now, they are finding quite a lot of it in some surprising places. The clean, successful German World Cup of 2006 has already been taken down, along with local hero Franz Beckenbauer, while 2018 and 2022 remain under relentless investigation accounting for whole swathes of football’s hierarchy. South Africa 2010 is sandwiched in between. There is no suggestion the bid was corrupt or that Sexwale did anything untoward, but if South Africa receives the same attention as Germany, and is found wanting, it could be a huge embarrassment if a member of that bid team is the recently-installed FIFA president.

It shouldn’t be hard to find a candidate who can look good up against Sepp Blatter, the friends of Platini or torture. Just shows you what a mess the sport is in.