Simon Cooper

I'm not sure that corrupt is the right word anymore.

In the Blatter era, yeah, I mean, you would be bribed with...

Brown envelope, so FIFA delegates would be given a brown envelope or money would go to their personal bank account and you would vote for Sepplato and you would photograph yourself voting for him.

And people, the barons within FIFA would take kickbacks and television rights.

So we sell the TV rights to this tournament to a TV station for a tenth of its value, but I personally get a few million into my bank account.

I think under Infantino it's been slightly professionalized, so it's what I call legalized

corruption, sort of the David Cameron way, where you make sure you're totally observing the law, and then you take money from ugly regimes and you spread it around your mates, but in a legal way.

So where has the money been coming into football the last decade or so?

From the Gulf.

Because Qatar had the bright idea, we want to host the World Cup.

It seems that some FIFA delegates who voted for Qatar were nicely recompensed for this, as were some who voted for Russia to host the World Cup in 2018.

But Gulf countries are the ones who want to put money into football.

And then Saudi Arabia sees Qatar.

Saudi Arabia, less bright royal family, MBS, the crown prince, thinks, I would also like to buy status and world fame through football.

But these damn Qataris from their tiny country got there ahead of me.

So now Saudi is getting a World Cup.

And Saudi also more or less paid for the whole World Club Cup, this ridiculous tournament last year won by Chelsea.

So all this money is pouring in from these ugly regimes.

And FIFA says, yes, thank you, let's have some more.

But then so do Western governments.