I’ve been destroyed, says Sepp sidekick

DISGRACED former FIFA secretary-general Jerome Valcke claims his reputation has been wrecked by his 10-year ban from football. The Frenchman, 57, was speaking after appearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, where he is appealing for his punishment to be overturned. Valcke, previously seen as one of the few good guys in former FIFA president Sepp Blatter’s corrupt empire, was banned after being found guilty of misconduct over the sale of World Cup tickets, abuse of travel expenses and use of private jets, attempting to sell TV rights below their market value and destruction of evidence. After being sacked in January 2016 he was banned from football for 12 years, but that was reduced to 10 by FIFA’s appeals committee. Valcke said: ‘It takes years to create your reputation. It needs one second to destroy, that’s where I am. A chapter has ended in a brutal manner. I tried to show I never acted against the interests of FIFA.’ CAS have never fully overturned a FIFA judgment and Valcke still being under criminal investigation for mismanagement makes it unlikely they will reduce his ban. lMATT

CHAPMAN, ITV Racing’s irritant betting expert, has another role as racecourse announcer at Towcester. But because the public address equipment was not to his liking for the start of their National Hunt programme yesterday, Chapman (right) left the course. Luke Harvey, Chapman’s nemesis at ITV, told At The Races that Chapman had ‘gone home in a huff’. FORMER RFU chairman Martyn Thomas has hit back over Rob Andrew’s character assassination of him in new book The Game Of My Life.

Andrew calls Thomas ‘woefully inadequate’ and adds: ‘I still feel anger in his regard. Under his leadership, Twickenham was reduced to dust.’

Thomas, under whose command Andrew was made director of elite rugby, said: ‘I was not supportive of his appointment and nor was Bill Beaumont. We both wanted Clive Woodward.

‘Andrew wasn’t up to the job. He only got it because of RFU politics and England’s performances during his 10 years at Twickenham speak for themselves. As for his supposed fire-fighting during the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand, we hardly ever saw him. When we did, he was running around like a headless chicken.’ lTHE

Secret Cricketer column in the Cricketer magazine says of the Ben Stokes scandal: ‘Our top players are now officially the prey of Britain’s appalling tabloid press.’ The not-so-secret writer happens to be a bog-standard player who is taking media training in the hope of a future career in the sector. Holding that opinion about newspapers? Forget it.