I am completely immune to the charms of football. It is the game which most eagerly embraced cash and abandoned sportsmanship. It encourages narcissism and spitting. The only good thing you can say for it is that it may exorcise very slightly more tribalism than it encourages. So why does the intelligentsia queue up to endorse it?

The lastest examples I have of the great and the good succumbing to the ridiculous affectation of enjoying this barbaric festival of testosterone come from last Saturday’s Financial Times. In it we learn that is the game of choice of (Jacques) Herzog and (Pierre) de Meuron, the designers of the Bejing Bird’s Nest. They designed the ground used by FC Basel, their home team. Now they are designing a ground for Portsmouth FC (a club which has the merit at least of being proud of its family following).

Lest I be taken to mean that there is no merit in football, I supposes I ought to concede its usefulness to the international investigators trying to understand the wrong-doings in Darfur, as retailed in the FT (26/27 July 2008). They resorted to talking football because they found it difficult to discuss the matter in hand. Who can blame them?