As Russia use the World Cup to, eh, put its best foot forward across the world, this week they drafted in the galactico of this kind of thing.
"The tournament has started with a.....BOOM" gurned a sunglasses-sporting Sepp Blatter, sitting placidly erect in an RT studio overlooking Moscow as if auditioning for the sequel to Scent of a Woman."What is important is that the television audience internationally...Russia is now in all of the world by television, and this is very important".
Sepp is still banned from all football-related activity, but it seems that a personal invite from Vladimir Putin creates a bit of wiggle room, allowing him to appear on the Kremlin-funded broadcaster for a farcically soft interview.
Blatter, to whom the word 'nebbish' owes an etymological debt, beamed happily that "this feels like my World Cup, [because of] how I was received, with cameras and photographers and so on".
It is, of course, Russia's World Cup but given the role that Blatter played in giving it to them in 2010, he could be indulged. Blatter openly campaigned for a Russian World Cup, but this was one half of his larger ambition. Sepp's eyes were on the Nobel Peace Prize, and felt that if the USA hosted the 2022 World Cup, the image of the tournament being exchanged would melt any lingering frost between the Cold War powers.
Then the World Cup went to Qatar, FIFA tumbled into disgrace and Donald Trump did Blatter's work for him. Blatter didn't survive the FBI's winnowing of FIFA's Men of Legend (this was an actual working title for the FIFA movie, United Passions) and has spent the years since trying to clear his name, living an oddly tragic existence exiled in antiseptic environs at the foot of the Alps adapting to a life away from FIFA for the first time.
Blatter has spent his life knowing nothing other than FIFA, and while his legacy is tangled and tarnished, he can at least be remembered as a proud upholder of the FIFA tradition that their president has to look a bit like the World Cup Trophy.
Naturally, RT were interested in how Sepp has been keeping himself since being publicly disgraced. "I am still president. Just suspended" sharply interjected Blatter before assuring the world in magnificently vague fashion that he has been "working on geopolitics".
Football is more than kicking the ball, football is going into the economy, it is a big economic matter. And now football is also touching politics. I am working on that. I am working on geopolitics. I am working to see the impact on football.
Football should not be dominated by politics, but football, perhaps, can solve political problems.
We assume this isn't a revelation that visited Sepp during his retirement, as it has long since been accepted that the World Cup is exploited as a political tool. The extent to which it would be in Russia posed a quandary for some of the familiar faces that accepted punditry roles with the country's state broadcasters, who asked themselves whether this RT did, in fact, constitute an endorsement.
For those unaware, RT is a state broadcaster formerly known as Russia Today that has frequently been accused of being a mouthpiece for the Kremlin. In 2014, for example, RT-America anchor Liz Wahl quit live on air saying that "I cannot be part of a network funded by the Russian government that whitewashes the actions of Putin" (this was back in an age when America could afford to take on the moral high ground on these matters).
Stan Collymore, the belligerent hero of The Stan Collymore Show on RT, has assured anybody who asked that he has full editorial independence over what he chooses to cover, jetting out to Russia promising to 'stick to sport'.
No politics rule. Football for 5 weeks.
— Stan Collymore ❤️🖤 (@StanCollymore) June 9, 2018
This didn't last very long.
A week later, Collymore appeared on RT to discuss the latest Apprentice host given to racist musings, calling for Alan Sugar to be sacked by the BBC for his tweet about the Senegal team while accentuating the level of racism endemic in British society.
There had been a lot of stones thrown at home ahead of this tournament in Russia about Russia's xenophobia and racism. Britons need to look a lot closer to home. This is at the very apex of British society.
It [Sugar's tweet] is not funny, it's racist. We already have a position toxic enough with Tommy Robinson and Katie Hopkins....to see it all coming out today and people not making genuine apologies and outing - in the most stupid and demeaning way - their racism gives me a good idea and hopefully gives the viewer a good idea of the toxic nature of British politics at the moment.
Collymore was as powerful, unflinching and eloquent on the topic as he has been for years, but RT were more than happy to cover the story and accentuate a few uncomfortable realities about England. They teed up Collymore by phrasing a question as "obviously we are reporting on this story, but do you think this remark has got enough coverage in the rest of the media?"
RT have been predictably fain to point out positive international coverage of the tournament, even more so if it makes the West look poor by comparison. Consider this review of the English media ahead of the game with Tunisia in Volgograd, which has been uploaded to RT's YouTube channel.
(Host Polly Boiko admittedly doesn't exactly handle the papers with the steady, experienced hand of a James Richardson, dangling The Guardian in mild disgust as if she was about to toss it to a hoarde of hungry Daily Mail editors).
But apparently, the Russian hospitality was on show for all to see. One particular headline that I enjoyed says England Fans Praise Welcome By Russian Hosts As They Celebrate Win. There is a quote from an English fan that says, 'I was speaking to a Russian ultra. All he wanted to do was hug me'. So even those dreaded Russian ultras, which we had heard so much about are behaving themselves for a change. So contrary to the predictions, everything sees to have gone off without a glitch. Some very celebratory headlines in the British media this morning.
One man impossible to exploit for political means, however, is Jose Mourinho.
Mou did a week of punditry on RT, and the extent to which he filtered everything through his own self-interest neutralised any hopes he might promulgate a political message.
Mourinho generally stood on a Moscow rooftop, hands in pockets, looking raffish, being deeply charming and engaging, refracting most of what he said through what best suited him: openly hoping that Serbia would get knocked out as "my man [Nemanja Matic] needs a holiday".
He hailed the underdog achievements of Iceland and Iran as what makes football "beautiful", while also separating himself from the Einsteins he has been so critical of in the past, using a discussion about Germany and Brazil's relative failures to distinguish his "profile as a pundit" to other pundits who "love blood".
Even his prescient, Harry Redknapp-style dismissal of Willy Caballero - "Cabellero in goal, or myself, would be the same because I would save the same as Cabellero" - can't be seen outside of the fact Mourinho coaches Argentina's other 'keeper, Sergio Romero.
Jose will return for the semi-finals, and took his leave with a bit of flattery. "The city is beautiful. The atmosphere is amazing. Our studio, I have to believe, is the best studio across all of the television studios present. Amazing experience for me. Now I need a little work, I need a little holiday".
In these turbulent times upheaval and untruth, trust Jose to promote nothing and nobody but himself.
Stray Observations
- Along with doing some work with ITV, Martin O'Neill has been moonlighting on FOX as an emergency replacement for Lothar Matthaus, and almost immediately found himself involved in the strangest television moment thus far.
- Good to see Argentine TV are taking the defeat to Croatia well, with one channel staging a minute's silence after the game.
- Patrice Evra revealed his nickname for Mario Mandzukic: Mr. No Good, on the basis that Mandzukic was never fully happy with what he had achieved.
- Oddly, we have yet to catch a glimpse of Pele in Russia. We assumed Putin would have invited him, given Pele's talent for profiting by meddling with foreign erections.
- That said, Pele might well have been drafted into the Argentina coaching staff, given his track record of dealing with problems caused by an underperforming Willy.
- Editor's Note - This column may never return.
- The latest inductee into the Calling Gabriel Jesus Gabriel Jaysus Hall of Fame - Liam Brady.
- Some enjoyable b****r on ITV between Roy Keane and Martin O'Neill, launched when discussing Neymar's running battle with the referee against Costa Rica:
Keane: I found near the end of my career I gave referees a hard time -
O'Neill: Toward the end of it? It started 15 minutes into it.
Keane: You soon realise that the more you hassle referees, the more 50/50 calls that go against you.
O'Neill: This is simply untrue. At Old Trafford, with 15 players around the referee...he's going to bottle it. - Patrice Evra, meanwhile, had the time of his life alongside Keane and O'Neill, to the point where he might end up on the Irish coaching staff next season.
Tweets of the Day
The original. Still the best. pic.twitter.com/4bCUAR2f53
— Michael Foley (@MickFoley76) June 22, 2018
the overriding look of managers at this World Cup is ‘Recently Divorced Scoundrel On the Dancefloor at 3AM on a Tuesday’
— David O'Doherty (@phlaimeaux) June 21, 2018
That advert again. I think RTE may possibly be overestimating how popular Shirley Bassey is in this country, by a factor of about ten million.
— Jonathan O'Brien (@obrien_jonathan) June 21, 2018
