Smash hit

A pity he didn’t say that to the fake sheikh.

Instead, once again, Eriksson has been waving his private parts around in public and a very unedifying sight it is, too. It is not the size of the indiscretion that matters. It is the willingness to be indiscreet at all that is so damaging for his credibility, and for the trust, such as remains, between himself and his players.

But it is the stupidity of it all that gets to you time and again. The fake sheikh is a known fact of life. If you are tabloid-bait, then any person with half an ounce of sense knows to be extra careful when introduced to a sheikh, especially when he starts offering you something for nothing. When a man on three million net a year goes fawning after fake sheikhs, it makes you wonder about greed and what it does to people. Greed makes you stupid: absolute greed makes you a complete nitwit.

WHAT SVEN SAID

SVEN-GÖRAN ERIKSSON told an undercover News of the World reporter posing as a rich Arab that he would resign as England head coach if they win the World Cup in Germany this summer and suggested that he would be prepared to become manager of Aston Villa as part of a takeover bid. Here is a selection of the other things he said:

ON ASTON VILLA: “The chairman [Doug Ellis] is an old man today. He’s sick.”

ON DAVID BECKHAM: “Beckham and I have a relationship like that [crossed his fingers]. We are friends, but a lot of respect.”

ON HOW LONG BECKHAM WILL STAY AT REAL MADRID: “This season or next season. But if he already wants to leave then they would sell him. Monday I spoke to him about this. Not about Aston Villa.

“Because this is his third season never winning anything. And he can’t see things going to be better. Some of the big stars are getting older, like Roberto Carlos and [Zinedine] Zidane, and he has had five managers in three and a half years.”

ON WAYNE ROONEY: “It is his temper . . . he’s come from a poor family. His father was a boxer . . . he could have been a boxer as well.”

ON MICHAEL OWEN AT NEWCASTLE UNITED: “I talked to Michael Owen and said “You are happy?’ He said, “Not really with the club, but economically I never earned that money in my life.’ So they paid the salary more than Real Madrid did.

“He said, ‘They gave me a house, they gave me a car, it’s incredible.’ They had to do it because in any other way he wouldn’t have gone there.”

ON RIO FERDINAND: “He is lazy sometimes.”

ON SHAUN WRIGHT-PHILLIPS: When asked by Athole Still, Sven’s agent, what was the “most exaggerated player’s transfer” made by Chelsea, Eriksson replied: “Shaun Wright-Phillips, how much did they pay for him?”