Gary Lineker says that he felt so sullied by fraternising with Fifa delegates that he wanted a shower afterwards. The 1986 World Cup Golden Boot winner was asked by the Football Association to fly to Switzerland in 2010 to help rally support for England’s ultimately unsuccessful bid to host the 2018 tournament and the experience convinced him he wanted nothing further to do with the “murky” world of international football politics.
“I couldn’t bear it,” Lineker commented, speaking at the launch of BT Sport’s European football coverage. “I wasn’t really involved in the bid but at the last minute they asked me to come over – I think because they heard I played golf with [the Uefa president] Michel Platini. We were in the lobby the night before the vote and we were asked to be really nice and creepy to all these people. It wasn’t me. I don’t like pretending to crawl up people’s backsides. And we were the only ones doing it.
“I remember I was sat with David Beckham and turned to him at one point and said: ‘Have you noticed we’re the only nation that’s doing this? Do you get the feeling that it might already be done?’ So I had that sense at the end of it all of needing a shower.”
Lineker, then, has no intention of putting himself forward for a role in football administration. “I don’t really want to go into that murky world, even if it’s just to clean it up,” he said. “I’m not a political animal. I don’t think I’m false enough.”
The former England captain was not surprised by the revelations of corruption at Fifa in recent weeks. The 54-year-old does, however, believe the crisis at Fifa means football is at a “seminal moment” and it is essential that Sepp Blatter is replaced as Fifa president by a person of “unquestionable integrity”.
“It’s not surprising to people to see the levels of corruption that engulfed Fifa over such a long period of time,” said Lineker. “I think it’s just the scale of the way the house of cards is falling and the speed of it is quite staggering.
“I’m not sure being delighted about that is a good thing. It’s a very good thing to see this massive amount of corruption being exposed but it’s also pretty depressing as someone who, like most people, loves the game of football. And depressing to think that it’s been run the way that it’s been run for such a long time. You sort of hope that this is a seminal moment and that something is done. But it’s going to be really difficult.
“It’s going to take a long time. We’re going to have to get someone in of unquestionable integrity to run this thing. His whole job will be to turn Fifa in to a respectable organisation again, which is going to take some doing. But the alternatives are what – a breakaway, with a fresh start and Fifa tries to carry on? But then you end up like the boxing world where you have all sorts of different world titles.
“So it’s a slightly worrying stage as well at the moment because who knows what’s going to happen to the World Cup. It’s a wonderful tournament sadly run by people that shouldn’t be running something of that magnitude and something that’s loved by people right around the world.”
