FOOTBALL fans around the world flocked in their millions to the Fifa ballot yesterday.
Sadly, it wasn’t for a vote to determine Gianni Infantino’s future but the start of the lottery which will see thousands of tickets dished out at random ahead of the World Cup.
Good luck if you’ve thrown your hat in the ring — you now face a nervous seven-week wait as fans won’t be notified if they’ve been successful until February.
The lucky few who do manage to get their paws on a golden ticket or two might want to brace themselves, mind.
Because when you add up tickets, travel and accommodation, the costs are astronomical.
Fans have been up in arms this week, with some taking to social media to reveal the eye-watering cost of early ticket and travel packages for group-stage games.
MAD AS A HATTER
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ULTRA DARK
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The Football Supporters Europe group even called for an immediate halt to World Cup ticket sales over “extortionate” prices — calling it a “monumental betrayal”.
You see, most of the match tickets will be several hundred quid, and the pledge made in 2018 to make this tournament as affordable as possible has vanished into thin air.
The cheapest ticket for the final is an eye-watering £3,119.
It is an all-too-familiar tale in modern-day football that the fans — the people who create those epic World Cup atmospheres — are being squeezed from every direction.
You would like to think everything will be rosy once the football actually starts on the pitch.
But we’ve also learned there will be “hydration breaks” midway through each half, no matter when the games are played or what the weather conditions are like.
It is yet another stoppage in this infuriating VAR age which will disrupt the viewing experience at home.
Still, at least Fifa will be able to make a few quid through their new “Marketplace” ticket platform, which has no limits whatsoever on resale prices. Every cloud.
It caps a grim week for the world’s greatest sporting event after the group-stage draw proved beyond all doubt that Fifa will always find ways to plumb new depths.
It says something about the man that — in his nine years at the helm of football’s governing body — Infantino’s most staggering “achievement” is uniting the world in wishing Sepp Blatter would make a comeback.
You just knew the ceremony was going to be utterly nauseating from the moment the egg with the ego, as I like to call him, cockily strolled on to the stage and roared: “This is America, so we have to put on a show!”
Fifa put on a show all right — it was just one that nobody with the blessing of sight wanted to see.
In a strange way, you almost have to admire how someone with the stage presence and charisma of a bog brush can hold such a high opinion of himself.
It’s a psychological trait which really merits studying.
The draw was two hours of our lives we’ll never get back and about as wholesome an experience as standing on an upturned plug in the middle of the night.
And in the pantheon of boot-licking displays, Infantino’s has got to be right up there with the most embarrassing, as he fawned over his bestie Donald Trump while presenting the President of the United States with the meaningless new peace prize.
The deranged Fifa boss also appears to take it as a compliment that Trump is now calling him “my boy”.
If that doesn’t make a grown adult take a long, hard look in the mirror, what will?
Football should never get involved with politics.
But Infantino, who cosied up to Vladimir Putin in Russia in 2018 and Qatari elites four years later, can’t help himself. It’s grotesque.
This is not what the World Cup is supposed to be about.
Maybe if Infantino spent less time bowing down at Trump’s feet, he would be able to see that.
EMERY A MARVEL
REMEMBER when Unai Emery was a figure of fun during his ill-fated Arsenal tenure?
Of course, it’s six years now since he left the Emirates but talk about turning your career around.
He worked wonders with Villarreal and returned to England to help steer a sleeping giant in Aston Villa back to the upper echelons of the Premier League.
They were brilliant against Arsenal last weekend and Emery continues to prove he is pound-for-pound the best coach in Europe.
Who knows where he can take Villa this season?
ENGLAND ON EDGE
THE Third Test starts in Adelaide on Tuesday night and, it’s fair to say, this will be a defining match for Bazball.
Ben Stokes and Co have embarrassed themselves Down Under and are staring down the barrel already, trailing the Aussies 2-0 with three to play in The Ashes.
It’s all well and good having an attacking philosophy but Test cricket is about ebbs and flows and playing to the situation. It can’t always be pedal to the metal.
England need to adapt their style and MUST win this Test to prevent it spiralling into a complete and utter debacle.
One more pathetic defeat, and heads will surely have to roll.
HEARTS OF GOLD
BBC racing commentator John Hunt endured an unimaginable tragedy last year, when his wife Carol and daughters Hannah and Louise were murdered.
Top bloke Hunt and his daughter, Amy, recently launched the Hunt Family Fund to help raise money for causes which help young women.
Tomorrow’s December Gold Cup at Cheltenham has been renamed in the fund’s honour, which is a nice touch from the racecourse.
A silent auction fundraiser may have ended last night but you can still donate to a very worthy cause at — bidaid.com/auction/HFF
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