“THE World Cup draw is nearing, our hearts are beating fast.” Thus spake Heidi Klum last night. Was ever a truer sentence spoken by a German supermodel in the context of the administrative preliminaries to an international sporting event? Gentlemen, unscrew your balls.

“There’s always surprise packages at World Cups,” Joe Cole, of Chelsea, had sagely warned us. But they are as nothing compared with the surprise packages at World Cup draws. Which is why we can only lament the BBC’s decision to stick with the business end of last night’s proceedings and not screen the all-singing, all-dancing, pre-draw show. Apparently, it included a talking football, a sensational concept. Mind you, when they can produce a talking footballer, then we’ll be impressed.

One was sad, too, to have missed the live lion, which was a masterstroke, boding well for the imagination that the German hosts intend to bring to the tournament next year, perhaps particularly in relation to crowd control issues. Historians confirm that this would indeed have been the first use of trained livestock in a tiearranging context, unless you count that time when Tommy Smith did the FA Cup draw.

The general feeling, however, is that the organisers missed a trick not inviting Sven-Göran Eriksson on stage to put his head in the lion’s mouth. The new technology-based entertainments are all very well, but you can’t beat the old, traditional vaudeville.

Probably as well, though, that John Motson, who was on the ground for the BBC, had elected not to wear his famous sheepskin coat. Had the lion caught sight of that item, jigging about on the other side of the room, things could have got very ugly indeed, and the BBC might now be contemplating going into the tournament without one of their key players.

Clever old Germany, though, for designing a draw that lasted 90 minutes. Geddit? Football? Ninety minutes? And silly old BBC for missing the symmetry and only broadcasting 45 minutes of it. Then again, perhaps this was wishful thinking on the BBC’s part. In the modern tournament draw, what could easily be accomplished in three minutes using a pair of scissors, a sheet of A4 and an empty Celebrations tin, becomes a global telethon, bumped up with fireworks, models, trained livestock and at least one hairy German illusionist. Check all these boxes last night in Leipzig — and don’t punish yourself if you failed to spot the difference between the illusionist (of whom the BBC did allow us a glimpse) and the lion. Or, for that matter, Urs Linsi, the general secretary of Fifa, and a talking ball.

All this, plus an obligatory appearance by Pelé, the Brazilian legend turned campaigner for erectile dysfunction medication. How on earth does he keep it up? Extraordinarily, the draw for the World Cup counts as a listed event. This means that Sky Sports aren’t allowed in. Kelly Dalglish and Nick Collins were on the spot, but destined to shuffle about in the cold, making poignant references to “this building behind me”. And back in London, Sky Sports News had to be content with hiring two former pros, sticking them in front of television sets and getting them to talk animatedly about the pictures we weren ’t seeing — unless we had one of those new-fangled television sets that can receive BBC Two.

On that channel, Motson was deployed to translate the Fifa official on the stage, but as the official was speaking in English at least as clear as Motson’s, this may not have been strictly necessary. Indeed, it led to cacophony and confusion at certain points, not least when Motson got his pots crossed and became hugely excited at the prospect of England facing the Ivory Coast. “Agh! He’s drawn Sweden again,” Motty screamed, “ and we never seem to beat them.” But Paraguay and Trinidad and Tobago settled the nerves. “Not anything we should be fearsome of,” Ray Clemence said on Sky. Let’s leave fearsome to the lion.

For Ian Payne, on Sky, this was “the biggest night of the football year”. Personally, I’d probably want the night to include some actual football before I handed it that title. Then again, what could football have added to proceedings? It would have got in the way of the animals, Heidi Klum and the talking leather. Sometimes the game itself just has to take a back seat.

‘Crouch Affair’ raises questions about nature of BBC’s sporting conduct

THERE could be no more accurate way to gauge the central place that Peter Crouch has come to occupy in the popular imagination in 2005 than by noting that he is this year’s Bob Nudd. Whatever else the Liverpool target man achieves in the career ahead of him, he’ll always have that.

Nudd, you may recall, once reigned supreme in British angling and his tireless supporters spent a large part of the 20th century attempting to persuade the BBC to acknowledge this master rodsman’s greatness by finally handing him the Corporation’s Sports Personality of the Year award. But the BBC was said to be so fiercely protective of its night of a thousand stars that it didn’t want anyone in waders muddying the red carpet.

So, allegedly, the Nudd vote was routinely set aside and the honour handed to a representative of one of Britain’s more media-friendly pastimes, such as triple-jumping.