A report from the FA’s Christmas Eve party at Wembley Stadium

By Sir Hardly Anyone

And what a fabulous night at the Sweet FA it was.  As the representative of Oakham and Rutland Football Association, one of the oldest FAs in the country I was delighted to join in the big bash at Wembley Stadium.  The speeches, although largely incoherent were spectacular.   And the entertainment supplied by various homeless women who were given a sandwich each in return for waiting at table, was great fun.

The head of the FA, Martian Plain gave a superb speech and told us that, “The FA means FA, and I say that because that is exactly what it means and what it stands for.”  Oh how we cheered.

“Now,” he continued, “I know that following the referendum in Britain to leave the EU, people have been asking for a referendum for the FA to leave Fifa.  I could talk on this for a long time, and waffle away but instead I shall use a series of meaningless phrases to convince you that we should be playing an ever more central role in Fifa, and in Uefa.  I look at these organisations and realise they are corrupt and inept, and thus they exactly match our aspirations and ambitions and indeed our current situation.

“People say that we face challenges in the FA, but I tell them, these are opportunities.  Our inability to deal with racism is not a fault!  No!  It is an opportunity.  Our inability to deal with sexism will only be seen as a failing by namby-pamby do-gooders.  They should wake up and realise that this is also an opportunity.  Our inability to deal with the sexual abuse of children should be once again be seen as…”

And of course to a man the assembled gathering shouted “an opportunity”.

“Yes indeed,” said the chair of the FA.

“Waffle waffle,” said the gang, and taking it as an instruction the chair of the Association continued.

“There is no room for complacency,” he said.

“No!” shouted the hordes.

“There is no room for sitting on our hands and doing nothing in the face of corruption,” he cried.

“No no,” shouted the waitresses, fed up with old men trying to molest them.

“What matters is that we maintain our absolute sense of God-given superiority and our ability to look down our noses at the rest of the world, irrespective of the results of matches or the amount of money we waste.”  (Wild cheering).

“Now I know some people want details, and I will give you details.”  Suddenly there was a hush.  We had never had details before.  The speaker looked up.  We looked at him.

“Never consult anyone.”  There was nodding.

“And never reform anything.”

Well!  The crowd went wild beyond imagination.  Grown men fainted with excitement for we had never ever heard anything like this before.

“We are resolute,” he continued.  “We will never give out too much information.”  (Cheering)  “We will make up policy as we go along.”  (More cheering).  “England has the most exciting football team in the world.”  (More grown men fainted with excitement).

“We are…”

There was a hush.  This was going to be the big one.  He waited.  We held our breath.

“We are…”

Utter silence apart from the occasion sound of hand on face as serving wenches slapped old gropers.

“We are….”

“Yes, yes….” cried the expectant gathering.

“We are going to Russia…”

Utter silence.

“We are going to Russia,” he repeated.

There was not a sound.

“We are going to Russia and…”

You could have heard the proverbial pin drop.

“We are going to Russia and…

“We are going to spend other people’s money!!!”

Well, I can tell you, I have never heard such an outpouring of devotion and joy.

It took several minutes to remove the august members of the meeting who had died but to his credit the old duffer stayed on his feet and waited for his chance to finish off the speech.

“We are going to Russia,” he reiterated, “and we will be doing very special things.  We will not be like France….”

“No!” screamed the crowd.

“We will not be like Germany, Iceland or Brazil.”

“No!” came the shout again.

“We will not be like them because we will not win a match and will not score a goal.  That will show them who’s in charge.  We are not French, German, Icelandic or Brazilian.”

Well, I can tell you we had never heard anything like this before.

“Let me finish,” he said, as we held our breaths, because we knew this was going to be good.  “Let me finish by saying I feel more confident now about the FA’s ability to run up huge debts, fail to investigate all the so-called problems with our glorious organisation, and run a misogynistic out-dated, irrelevant and sexist organisation, than ever before.  And of that I think we can be justly proud.”

Of course the cheering, mixed with wild abuse of everyone who was not white, male and old went on into the small hours, but eventually our chairman called for silence so he could deliver his final point.

“Some people think that in the way we treat racial minorities, women and the disabled we have gone too far.  But let me tell you something.  When we get to Russia, you will realise, what you have seen in the past year at the FA was only the beginning.”

We shouted, we cheered, we rampaged and we knew.  2018, we knew, is going to be one hell of a year for the FA.

“Happy Christmas,” shouted the chair as in the spirit of co-operation and goodwill we helped the waitresses remove those members of the Association who had died during the proceedings because at heart we are decent souls.  “Remember our slogan.  No principles, no progress, no values, no clue.”

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With apologies to John Crace whose book “I Maybot” is the best thing we’ve read all year.