Sex scandals, corruption, lies, betrayal.
A new blockbuster movie? No, just the soap-opera world of the people who run and lead England's national soccer team.
PHOTO: EPA
The Football Association (FA), the organization that formulated the rules of the game more than a century ago, has been rife with dirty deeds for decades, and the home of soccer has become the home of sleaze.
England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson, the man given the task of recapturing lost glory for the nation that invented the game, is at the center of a sex scandal.
After an initial denial, his bosses at the FA admitted that he had an affair with one of its secretaries. They also admitted the same woman had an affair with the FA's top administrator, chief executive Mark Palios.
If that's not spicy enough, it doesn't end there.
Palios resigned on Sunday after further newspaper revelations about the scandal, while Eriksson flew back to London to answer questions about his role, facing the sack if he doesn't come up with the right answers.
The 12-man FA Board, which has the power to hire and fire the England coach, meets tomorrow. They are unlikely to fire Eriksson -- a single man -- for having an affair with 38-year-old Faria Alam -- a single woman.
But they are anxious to find out how the FA came to issue a denial about the affair, and then make a U-turn and admit that it did take place.
If Eriksson misled the FA, he's almost certain to be shown the exit door.
It doesn't stop there.
Colin Gibson, the FA's director of communications, has offered his resignation in the light of newspaper allegations that he came to a deal with the tabloid that broke the story.
According to the News of the World, former newspaper journalist Gibson offered to give the paper the full story on Eriksson's affair if the tabloid played down Palios' involvement.
The FA is yet to announce whether it will accept Gibson's resignation.
The problem facing the FA is that it recently handed the Swede a two-year extension to his contract worth US$7.3 million a year, which theoretically leaves him in charge of the team until 2008.
Firing the Swede, who also hit the headlines two years ago after an affair with TV celebrity Ulrika Jonsson, could cost anything up to US$25.6 million.
The scandal, dubbed "Svengate" by the tabloids, is the latest in a long line of self-inflicted wounds which have left the FA a laughingstock.
Palios' predecessor, Adam Crozier, left the FA under financial pressure after overspending on big projects including a "National Football Center" that never materialized and the rebuilding of Wembley Stadium. The stadium had to be redesigned after initial costs proved too high.
The FA fired England coach Glenn Hoddle in 1999 after a routine interview with the Times turned out to be a blockbuster. A committed Christian, he strayed off the line of the interview and said that disabled people were being punished for sins of an earlier life. Amid a public outcry that he offended millions of disabled people, he was fired.
At about the same time, FA chief executive Graham Kelly and chairman Keith Wiseman both quit over a so-called bribes for votes scandal.
Although both declared their innocence, Kelly was accused in the media of offering the Welsh Football Association a US$5.85 million grant so that Wiseman would get the Welsh vote in a FIFA election. FIFA launched an inquiry and cleared both men but they never got back to the FA.
FA chairman Bert Millichip was alleged to have reneged on a handshake deal with Germany over the 2006 World Cup. After England hosted Euro '96, the veteran lawyer reportedly agreed to back Germany as host for World Cup 2006. Months later, the FA angered the Germans and put in a rival bid.
Occasionally, the FA has been the victim.
Don Revie walked out on England in 1977 to take a highly paid, tax-free job in the United Arab Emirates, negotiating the deal in Dubai instead of watching a game in Helsinki, Finland.
Kevin Keegan, who replaced Hoddle and was Eriksson's predecessor, stunned a post-match news conference after a World Cup qualifying loss at home to Germany by announcing he had quit.
But another coach appointed by the FA because of modest successes at club level was humiliated by the tabloids because of abject failure at international level.
Graham Taylor's England failed to win a game at the 1992 Euros and didn't make it to the '94 World Cup in the US.
To the horror of the FA, the tabloids superimposed Taylor's head on a picture of a turnip after England had lost to Sweden at the Euros, under the headline: Swedes 2, Turnips 1.
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