Theresa May resorts to populist posturing as she baits Fifa

Utterly outraged, she said. Recognise and respect, she said. A clear message, she said.

Had she nothing better to do?

Apparently not. As if there was nothing happening at a High Court nearby, the new UK prime minister Theresa May took to the floor of the House of Commons on Wednesday to tell those who might hold a different opinion that "before they start telling us what to do", she would be doing it first.

Mrs May, suddenly interested in football, declared that the Football Associations of England and Scotland would be instructing their teams to wear poppies on their jerseys in next Friday's World Cup qualifier at Wembley. Fifa had said, "Oh, no they won't".

Meanwhile, Aleppo burns.

The prime minister, suddenly interested in sport, thought it was a government priority to bait Fifa. After all, it’s not as if there’s anything else to discuss and Fifa is proven to be a corrupt organisation. What sport indeed.

Meanwhile, Public Health England, a government body, quotes a World Health Organization report on childhood obesity in England from 2014-15.

It states that 19 per cent of English 10-11 year-olds are obese with a further 14 per cent “overweight”. One third of England’s ten year-olds are fat.

The prime minister knows this; but in August she declined to extend a sugar tax.

A row

By Wednesday, however, Ms May had health issues of her own. She’d contracted Poppyitis. This manifests itself as poppycock.

Someone, doubtless an obsequious advisor, had informed her that there would be mileage in a raising the temperature over a row about poppies that is now a November staple. Like having the clocks turned back.

So Mrs May revealed her outrage, simmering for minutes, that the poor England and Scotland players of 2016 would not be able to kick their political football.

Scott “Broonie” Brown and Wayne “Roo” Rooney must have been chuffed with May’s tough tackle on Fifa. Broonie and Rooney are always on about the sacrifice at Passchendaele.

Meanwhile, a headline from last October, when Ms May was home secretary, reads: “One school every two weeks gets government go-ahead to sell off land or playing fields”.

The headline related to a report from the department for education showing that, in the previous 12 months, 27 schools had had their application to sell off some land approved. It took the total number of schools allowed to do this since the 2012 London Olympics to 87.

The DfE said: “The government will only give permission to dispose of school playing fields if the sports and curriculum needs of the school and its neighbouring schools can continue to be met.”

Playing field sell-offs

And who monitors this?

MPs, for example? Michael Gove was education secretary' during and after the Olympics. In August 2012 Gove had to apologise for getting his numbers wrong on school playing field sell-offs. Funnily enough, he had said there were fewer than there were.

Maybe it was just a slip of the pen.

After all The Daily Telegraph investigation into MPs' expenses revealed that Gove had "flipped" his address and once tried to claim for a mug bought at Tate Modern. Those pesky biros.

Gove was preceded by Ed Balls, who in 2007 tried to claim £33 for two wreaths to be delivered by the British Legion for Remembrance Sunday.

Who could doubt the sincerity of MPs on poppies?

And of course Theresa May is correct about Fifa when she said that they “jolly well ought to sort their own house out”.

One of those phrases she must have heard on her countless visits to the football terraces of England – “jolly well”.

Meanwhile, at the same time as a sugar epidemic and playing field sell-offs, teachers’ unions in Scotland say there has been a seven per cent drop in full-time PE teachers. The SNP government claim that PE teachers on part-time contracts are covering that shortfall. Of course they are.

Despite everyone knowing the benefits of sport in school and beyond – physical, mental and emotional – let’s just cover it part-time. It’s not as if there’s an obesity issue amongst Scottish children.

Pies all roond?

And we haven’t even got to James McClean.

Where’s that Irish rebel when a bunch of Tory headbangers need someone to point at and boo?

Meanwhile, in the Mediterranean Sea another flimsy boat capsizes.

It emerged on Wednesday, just a few hours after Theresa May's cynical intervention, that on this particular vessel was a teenage goalkeeper from Gambia. Her name was Fatim Jawara. She drowned.

Football had been Jawara’s hobby, rather than her profession, but she was talented and had played for Gambia’s Under-17s. The International Organisation for Migration think she left the poverty of Gambia last September and trekked across the Sahara to Libya.

The gallery

When it comes to remembering one of their own, football should be able to choose how it reflects on Fatim Jawara and what her death says about the world around us.

But it isn’t, because football has been hijacked.

Hijacked by those who tell us God Save the Queen is a football song; and hijacked by poppy politicians who can't read even basic joined-up policymaking.

They prefer the gallery, to be seen shouting about football – but not rugby – as they pin their poppies, jerk their knees and polish their brass necks.