Can football save the World? No, really I'm serious. Think about it. In what other international forum could you get people from just about every faith, and certainly every continent, most political stripes, to completely focus their minds and energies on the vagaries of a ball bouncing across a field chased by twenty two men, at the same time shutting out every other distraction?

Thought so. None

I can't think of a better opportunity for men and women to bond or at least get to understand their peers from other countries than around something as issue free as football. It's social engagement on a massive scale. Thank God, too, that football is increasingly gender neutral.

Ok, so there'll be controversies, but are they going to result in long term doctrinal schisms that'll persist over the centuries? Maybe it's different if you're English, where 1966 is still the great unhealed wound.

Class free (more or less); appeals to all ages, races, creeds and colours; once endemic gender bias fast fading away. No religion comes to mind that's got all of those ready to hand. Should FIFA replace the United Nation?