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Red card for FIFA

To say this chap is not a suspicious individual would be ... well, lying. I may be paranoid but, as they say, if you are not - they'll get you.

Now for some years I have had a sneaking suspicion that FIFA - the world body for soccer - has had it in for Australia.

Now I can't prove it, but I reckon they have done the dirty on the Socceroos over the years by making it extraordinarily tough for us to qualify.

Unlike other nations, Australia usually has to win its own group, then enter play-offs against other very powerful sides to see if we can make the World Cup finals.

Now as any fan of the round ball knows - we've only done it once in squillions of years.

The next World Cup is next year in Korea and Japan and the Socceroos have already partly qualified. All we need to do now is beat the fifth-placed country from South America (no easy task) and there we are, ready for glory.

To get our skills honed for the home-and-away games, Australia is taking on the world champion side France in a warm-up friendly at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Flying in from all around the world will be the likes of Leeds' duo Harry Kewell and Mark Viduka.

However, FIFA in all its anti-Australian wisdom is putting a ban on more than one player from any club being able to play in a friendly match. This means that our potent Socceroo strikers may not be in tune with the rest of the team come the crunch games - probably against Uruguay.

Needless to say, the Aussie heirachy is not happy and is likely to tell FIFA to rack off.

I am in complete agreement, although Soccer Australia would probably be far too diplomatic for my liking.

How does "Sod off FIFA and stick your stupid ideas up your clacker" sound?

We will make it to the World Cup this time and while it is exceedingly unlikely that we can go any further than the quarter-finals we'll give it a good shake.

Afterall, we are world champions of just about every other sport known to man. Aha, that's what FIFA fears - yet another major trophy brought in triumph Down Under.

If there is something that has really got up your nose, let Grumpy Old Coot know at grumpy@webwombat.com