GOING NOWHERE
Sepp Blatter has been hospitalised after experiencing a “small emotional breakdown”, with weeping fans travelling from far and wide to visit the suspended Fifa president’s bedside to offer moral support and wish him a full recovery. “My brain and my heart are always fine, my body is letting me down,” Blatter reportedly said, a variation of which is said to have been heard once or twice on construction sites in Qatar. Still, The Fiver assumes it’s nothing that can’t be sorted out by a sturdy handshake from a medical professional.
And fear not. “His most important message is that he is fully preparing himself to go ahead with his fight against his 90-day suspension,” Blatter’s spokesman said. “He is deeply convinced that the ethics commission cannot force him out. He said to me yesterday: ‘I was elected president by the 209 members of the congress and no commission can put me out of the game.’ He’s fighting against this suspension.” Stay strong, sweet prince, keep fighting the good fight. You remain in all of our hearts.
Although maybe not in Greg Dyke’s. The Football Association chairman has been on the talk again and he wants answers over Blatter’s allegations that the vote for the 2018 World Cup, won by plucky underdogs Russia, was rigged. “I think we’ll get an early answer quickly but with that we’ll then go back to our barrister,” Dyke roared. “A lot of people put in money - I believe Birmingham City Council put in £250,000, for instance - so when all that stuff came out from Blatter, we said, ‘Let’s go and talk to our lawyers’ because we needed to work out what the legal basis for getting our money back was, if you can, and we went to a QC. Our intent is to get the 20-odd million back, from Fifa.” And just think of what the FA could do with that money!
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“After training, it was a greasy spoon called McKay’s where the players usually congregated. For beers, they would head to the King John, a hundred yards down the hill from Nottingham railway station, or maybe the Pepper Mill or Uriah Heeps if it was shaping up to be a proper night out. Yet the most popular meeting place was always McKay’s. It was there where the players put the world to rights, tucking into the kind of unpretentious grub that never seemed such a big deal in the days before football opened its doors to nutritionists and sports scientists and the strange new world of pasta, green-leaf salads and mineral water. “Fourteen chip cobs,” became such a regular order that the owner, Bill, had to get in extra supplies of bread and potatoes.” Treat yourself to this extract from Daniel Taylor’s forthcoming book on Nottingham Forest’s extraordinary journey from also rans to champions.
FIVER LETTERS
“Re Joel Coombe’s letter (Tuesday’s Fiver letters): ‘May I suggest just one teeny-tiny entry covering all 15 other teams at once?’ All 15 other teams? That’s some quality trolling right there. Now to sit back and wait for the explosion …” – Kieran Bell.
“Regarding Joel Coombe’s letter yesterday: can someone please remind Mr Coombe that the Premier League isn’t the only football competition in the world! The Fiver also lacks representation of all the other teams in the entirety of world football as well. In fact, why do we read it again?” – Dan Makeham (and 1,056 others).
“David Moyes was ‘handed his P45’ (yesterday’s Fiver) by his Spanish overlords? That can’t be a UK dismissal notice, then. I wonder if he received this P45 instead. Lucky sod - he can toodle all over the country until Bournemouth or Newcastle come calling for him” – Mike Wilner.
“Can I be the first of the Fiver’s Spanish pedants, not sure how many of the 1,057 they’ll be, to point out what your Spanish cousins, Juan Miguel Manuel Ole! Ole! Ole! Lispy Bit Fiver and Juan de la Juan de la Juan de la Juan Straw Donkey Acoustic Guitar Olé Olé Olé Eldorado Sun Sea Sand Dust Fiver failed to tell you, which is that in Spain you don’t get handed a P45. David Moyes would have been given a ‘finiquito’, which translates as a settlement in the liquidation sense, a nice little earner no doubt” – Matthew Duffy.
• Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also tweet the Fiver. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day is: Matthew Duffy.
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BITS AND BOBS
Good news for toe-punters the world over: a new boot is attempting to bring the good old toe-poke back into fashion.
Barcelona hope lil’ Leo Messi will be fit enough to start on the bench in the forthcoming clásico after his knee ligament ouch.
In an edition of the Rumour Mill definitely not headlined for maximum click attraction no sirree, Alexis Sánchez is off to Manchester United in January.
The world’s oldest professional player Kazuyoshi Miura has signed a new contract to take him past his 49th birthday with Yokohama FC.
Blackburn want Paul Lambert to be their new manager. No, really.
STILL WANT MORE?
Paul Doyle dons his tin hat and offers his Premier League XI of the season so far.
Enjoy a lovely thick slice of nerdvana with this week’s Knowledge, featuring Josef Bican, crocodiles and Ipswich.
It’s International Week Quiz time! Today: caps and appearances.
Use your head, urges Paul Wilson.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace.
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