Keir RADNEDGE THE INSIDER

Shakira belted out: “This time for Africa!” from the opening match at the 2010 World Cup through to the final. It was, briefly, but not any more.

Sepp Blatter, then FIFA’s president, bore a missionary’s obsession with bringing the complex continent up to speed on and off the pitch through football. That was one of Blatter’s better ideas and he saw the World Cup as the means to open the door.

Political shenanigans had seen the 2006 finals sent to Germany so the 2010 award was restricted, with South Africa outbidding Morocco and Egypt. FIFA threw means and money at the project, and its success owed much to the night-and-day efforts of secretarygeneral Jerome Valcke (now, like Blatter, on the naughty step).

Bear in mind, the IOC has never dared take the Olympic