SUFFERING as I am from a poor sleep pattern at present, my 2am trawl through the interweb this morning turned up a cracker, deep in the Guardian's website sports pages.
It seems those awfully nice chaps at Wembley are about to parachute Rio Ferdinand into the FIFA vice-presidency slot which is given to a representative of the four "Home Associations" - the (English) FA, the FA of Wales, the (Northern) Irish FA and those wonderful chaps at Hampden, the SFA.
The tone of the piece, which, to be fair to the Guardian, was a Press Association-penned piece, is that Rio should automatically succeed dear old Jim Boyce, the long-serving Ulsterman, who is standing down from the post.
The problem here is, the four Home Countries have to vote on it first and put forward a united choice as candidate, to fill the role which, in a Scottish context, was last filled, and filled very well, by the late David Will of Brechin City.
You may recall what happened when David stood down, John McBeth of Clyde got the gig, but, in an interview with some of our top Sunday paper writers, prior to his first trip to Switzerland, John let it slip that several FIFA officials, notably in his experience that wonderful Caribbean "diplomat" Mr Warner, couldn't be trusted as far as they could be thrown. Cue consternation in the cantons and Mr McBeth was suddenly ruled unacceptable at football's top table.
The fact that John's opinion was subsequently proved correct may be of little consolation to one of football's gentlemen, who would surely have been as asset to FIFA, which is hardly the epitome of democracy and good governance.
His black-balling let England in. Traditionally, the three Celtic countries combine to ensure, England doesn't get to supply the UK's FIFA vp, but, on that occasion, England blind-sided them. I forget who they put up, but,he was an absolute disaster, so-bad even FIFA couldn't stomach him and the relatively harmless Mr Boyce got the gig.
Now he is standing down, and, regardless of what will surely be a relentless media onslaught from Wembley and the English media - I would bet the house on the eventual UK vice-president being either Campbell Ogilvie or the Welsh candidate, whose name escapes me.
Now, Wales hasn't had the FIFA vp job for some 70-years, mainly because, they haven't had a candidate who came up to scratch. We may, rightly, bitch about the incompetence and lack of intelligence and ability of your average SFA "blazer", but, they are all Einsteins, compared to the members of the "Taffia" in Cardiff.
I still recall the Welsh trip into Central Europe, back in the 1970s, where, after a cock-up in the bookings which saw a 31-strong official Welsh party turn-up at Heathrow to discover only 30 seats booked on the aircraft, and it was one of the players who had to be left behind to travel by the next day's flight - since all of the officials were too-important to be kicked-off the plane, and obviously much-more important than a mere player.
Legend has it the dunped player enjoyed an excellent night in a Heathrow hotel, his expenses paid by the FAW and his fevered brow calmed by the ministrations of a sympathetic BA stewardess!!!
FIFA is a veritable nest of vipers, you need jungle cunning to survive there, so, given the way he managed to survive in the top job at Hampden, as SFA president, in spite of his first club, the original Rangers, being liquidated, and his subsequent club, Hearts, going into administration; the way he has sailed untouched through various "scandals", such as the abortive deal to keep Rangers in the SPL post-liquidation, Ogilvie is almost a shoo-in.
He knows the movers and shakers in the FIFA Mafia, he knows where the bodies are buried and who buried them - forget it Rio and Boyo, the CO will get the gig.
IF THE message still hasn't hit home to the 11 diddy teams in the SPFL premiership, why not. Surely, after their failure to beat Motherwell at Celtic Park on Sunday, it is clear, this not very good or very confident Celtic team is beatable - if the rest just believe.
New manager, new players, lacking confidence, that's Celtic right now. They are more-vulnerable this season than they have been at any time in the past 50-years.
Fifty years on from that titanic Kilmarnock v Hearts struggle for the old SFL League title, is it too-much to hope for another upset and a diddy team winning the League.
IT IS sad to note the parting of the ways between Hamilton Academical and Scott Struthers, one of the few Scottish club officials who has ever shown a spark of something special.
And, how ironic, no sooner has the bold Scott announced his departure, than Accies make it, albeit briefly, to the top of the league table.
As the late 'Fergie' might have said: "What the @^*#'s going-on here".
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