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Picture the scene.
It is Brazil’s first match at the 2010 World Cup; night has fallen; it is so cold that the Official Fan Shop has sold out of blankets at 400 Rand a throw.
And here I am on a corner looking for North Korea fans.
Which World Cup do England have the better chance of winning – 2010 or 2018?
For the bookies, the answer is clear.
A leading betting website on Saturday rated Fabio Capello’s men 8/1 fourth-favourites to triumph in South Africa, behind Spain (4/1), Brazil (9/2) and Argentina (13/2).
So Turkey narrowly failed in their efforts to upset France and win the right to host the 2016 European football championship.
Having come so close in Friday’s vote, I’m sure members of the Turkish bid team will need time to get over their disappointment.
But once they do, they can reflect that their efforts have secured an important legacy for Turkey: never again will a Turkish bid for any sports competition be taken lightly.
The moment of truth is fast approaching.
On Friday (May 28), 13 UEFA Executive Committee members will gather to select the host country of Euro 2016, the next but one European football championship, at Geneva’s Espace Hippomène.
So is that it then?
Should Korea, Australia and other leading candidates to stage the 2022 World Cup quietly pack up their toys and go home?
A casual reader of FIFA President Joseph Blatter’s comments in Qatar at the weekend might be forgiven for thinking so.
“Why are we so enthusiastic about Barcelona and Lionel Messi?
“[It’s] because he is playing like a kid.
“It’s like he is leaving his house and saying to his mum, ‘I’m going to play football, I’ll be back at 9 o’clock.’”
It has been a good couple of weeks for Joseph Blatter, FIFA’s veteran President.
First, FIFA’s ruling Executive Committee rejected a proposal that might have limited the presidency’s mandate to two consecutive terms of four years.
By David Owen
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
No sooner does England’s accident-prone World Cup bid appear to be getting its act together and heading for calmer seas then the water turns choppy again.
As football movers and shakers head to Angola this week for the finale of the African Cup of Nations, some will still be mulling the significance of what happened the last time many of them set foot on the continent early last month.
First Africa, now Asia.
As our exclusive story last week revealed, some of football’s six continental confederations appear to be exploiting the race for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to try to drum up some extra windfall cash.
It has been a dreadful start to the year for African football.
I was just settling down to write a column arguing that African governing body CAF’s decision to sign an exclusive sponsorship deal with Qatar 2022 demonstrated that FIFA needed to take a firmer grip on the World Cup bidding process - either that or simply auction the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to the highest bidders - when word of the attack on the Togo team came through.
Today I met a great football man. Easily done, you might think, in the city that is about to host the World Cup draw; the place must be swarming with Beckenbauers, Platinis and Beckhams.
“It was desert in July 2003.”
The Aspire academy for sports excellence – along with the city-centre skyline – is perhaps the most dramatic illustration of the pace at which Doha is changing.
What do the rugby sevens World Cup, tennis’s Sony Ericsson Championships and football’s Club World Cup have in common?