LAST week the beautiful game of football died with shame.

The decision to create and award a so-called “peace prize” to US President Donald Trump took brown-nosing to a whole new level.

But it was actually worse than that. Fifa, an organisation that endlessly talks about the need to keep sport and politics separate but was quick to ban Russian teams and allow the Israelis to remain in competition, has squirmed up to a genocide-enabling president who should be facing charges in the international court.

Fifa has also put its name next to a man who may prove to have an even closer connection to the woman-trafficking convicted probable Mossad asset Jeffrey Epstein than previously suspected.

Football is, and has been for some considerable time, almost entirely about profits.

It is far removed from the beautiful game played by that wonderful Brazilian team of 1970 and some of the amazing individual performances we have seen down the years from the likes of Johan Cruyff, Socrates, Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi.

What was once the sport of the working class has been ripped away by big business and has become a plaything for the super rich.

The super rich strip as many of the assets from the game as they possibly can and make matches and the buying of merchandise beyond the reach of many working-class families. It’s capitalist exploitation writ large.

Last week’s World Cup draw was a farce. It was more to do with stroking the massive ego of the orange peace prize hungry US president than the actual football.

But the ties between Fifa and Trump were already clear for all to see. Fifa even began renting a large suite of offices in Trump Tower in New York City earlier this year.

In fact over the last year or so Fifa boss Gianni Infantino has been in and out of the White House and Trump’s palace in Mar-a-Lago on numerous occasions. Infantino even accompanied Trump on a tour in May of the Gulf — something the Fifa supremo prioritised over his own organisation’s annual congress in Paraguay.

Infantino came to power after Fifa was engulfed in a corruption crisis that began in 2015 when the US Department of Justice charged 14 Fifa and marketing officials with bribery and corruption to the tune of more than $150 million (around £114m).

Even when he was arrested, Infantino’s predecessor, Sepp Blatter, resisted calls to resign and was astonishingly even re-elected by the Fifa board.

After he was eventually forced to stand down, allegations of wrongdoing did not disappear for Blatter.

Earlier this year, he and the brilliant former footballer and then ex-European soccer chief Michel Platini faced charges of corruption in a Swiss court. Both were eventually found not guilty but the ruling did little to ease concerns over the actions of the monied classes running football.

One of the reasons why Infantino may be sucking up to Trump is perhaps because there are ongoing investigations in the US into financial crimes related to Fifa? Trump hands out pardons like confetti to his mates so maybe Infantino believes he may need to keep that possibility up his sleeve? This of course is just speculation.

But there is, to coin a phrase, something rotten in the state of Fifa.
While host nations do not share in any of the profits from a World Cup, I doubt there is a person on the planet that does not believe the US won’t be wetting their beak in the profit pool of the competition.

In reality, this is all part of the process of stripping away part of working-class culture.

Even the atmospheres created by the old football grounds are gradually being replaced by money making plastic ventures called stadiums devoid of atmosphere. The price of home tickets continue to rise at a time when many people are having to make decisions about whether to eat or put the heating on.

The money men — and it is largely men — do so because they know people will complain but will, in the end, pay up. They do so because it’s one of the few ways left that working-class people have of letting off some steam. The beautiful game has always been the people’s game.

But it’s much more than that. It’s in your blood! It’s your tribe! You will always go back to your tribe!

The debacle of last week’s World Cup draw is but another example of the takeover of the great game by the money men.

Back in 2021 the games monied class came up with the crazy idea of creating a European “super league.”

The proposal sparked spontaneous mass protests from fans outside the grounds of the so-called “big six” clubs and other “wannabes.” People were clear that this was the final countdown in the war against working-class football fans.

Fans instinctively realised their game was being stolen by a cabal of bankers and dodgy football officials — the monied class that control football.

Football fans scored a huge victory in halting the plans but, I fear, only for the short term. The lure of super profits will be too big for these massive clubs to ignore. It is,perhaps, the logical end point of the direction football has been moving for decades.

The 2021 plan meant that 15 “founding members” would basically have been insulated from the “risk” of competition with their status in the Super League guaranteed by their riches. That’s not football! That’s a stitch-up and the entrenchment of a class society in football.

The almost unfathomable way the European Champions League is now structured is perhaps the first stage towards the reincarnation of the Super League plan.

When Villa became champions of Europe back in 1982 — a fact that we Villa fans mention from time to time — it was a genuine cup competition. You simply won the right to compete in the competition by winning your nation’s league, then you were drawn to play the champions of another country and so on until the last team standing was the winner.

Now you can be in the competition if you are in the top four in the English Premier League. You then enter a league where you don’t even play everyone but you’re measured against them to see if you get through to the quarter finals — all to do with gate receipts and, far more importantly, television fees. If you win you can progress to the semis and then the final and then, hopefully, glory.

We cannot allow this headlong rush towards soccer being just another commodity with all its soul ripped out to continue. Enough really is enough.

Those that love football must unite to win control of our game from football’s ruling class. We need a revolution in football.

Football fans of the world unite. We have nothing to lose but our beautiful game.