SEPP BLATTER is horrified by the example set for youngsters by the foul-mouthed Wayne Rooney, so the Fifa president’s reaction to an idea proposed for part of the gala ceremony at next year’s World Cup finals will be awaited with interest. Peter Gabriel has been enlisted to help to create the theme and music for the event, which takes place in Berlin two days before the tournament starts, and one of the musician’s suggestions may alarm the more staid members of football’s world governing body.

Asked for clues as to what the ceremony might entail, Gabriel divulged one possible detail. “Well, I did have this idea,” he said. “A red curtain across the goal, and that would grow to a skirt, and we’d attach little tails to footballs so they become like sperm.”

Reminded of the complaints prompted by the appearance of Greek gods in various states of undress during the Athens Olympics opening ceremony last year, the singer recognised the potential problems. “I don’t know if this is an idea that is going to fly.”

A spokesman for the gala organisers confirmed that the appearance of a red curtain had been discussed but she refused to reveal any more as the content is supposed to be a secret. Further information might depend on Gabriel dropping hints in unguarded moments.

The 90-minute extravaganza is the first Olympic Games-style, full-length ceremony to be staged before a World Cup. The opening match in Munich on June 9 will be preceded by a traditional, more modest affair, but the gala will take place elsewhere to allow any damage to the pitch to be overcome by the time that football is played there. The first match in Berlin is on June 13, six days after the sperm — or other constructions — make their appearance there.

A former Genesis frontman who subsequently enjoyed hits such as Sledgehammer and Games Without Frontiers as a solo artist, Gabriel is said to have become a football fan only recently, developing a soft spot for Liverpool. Perhaps his bizarre idea is no surprise, given a musical background that includes a wild 3-D animation landscape of steam trains, bumper cars and singing fruit in the video for Sledgehammer.

Fifa’s anxiety to increase its own importance, revealed in its creation of the Club World Championship, an attempt to match the impact of the all-powerful, Uefa-organised Champions League, may be behind the decision to introduce a pre-World Cup gala. “I think Fifa just wants (to say) ‘Anything the Olympics can do, we can do better’,” Gabriel said. “It’s a pretty big audience.”

England’s 1966 World Cup-winning team can expect to make yet another appearance to celebrate their achievement 40 years after their Wembley victory. “It’s a show that anyone who ever won the World Cup is going to be invited to,” Gabriel said. “All the players . . . Bobby Charlton, hopefully.”

The gala will be staged at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, the centrepiece of the 1936 Games, an event at which Jesse Owens, the black American sprinter, won four gold medals, to the dismay of Hitler. One of the avenues leading to the arena, which was reconstructed in the summer of 2000, bears the name of Owens. “We’ve had lots of discussions about how much to refer to that,” Gabriel said.

Problems of taste in large sporting ceremonies last year were not confined to the Olympics. At half-time in the Super Bowl, Justin Timberlake removed part of Janet Jackson’s top, supposedly to reveal a bra but in fact to show 140 million television viewers the singer’s breast. Thousands of complaints were received and it remained a matter of debate afterwards whether the incident was an accident.

Gabriel is co-ordinating next year’s event with a French choreographer and a German producer and he is clearly excited. “It’s like owning a big playpen and someone else is going to pay for it,” he said.

HIT AND MISS

SO SUCCESSFUL was New Order’s collaboration with England’s World Cup squad in 1990 that they managed to create a critically acclaimed No 1 hit, World In Motion, even though it included John Barnes rapping, Paul Gascoigne providing some other lone vocals and the entire squad singing together towards the end of the record.

In the light of the effort by Robert Pires for Arsenal last Saturday, Diana Ross’s penalty at the 1994 World Cup opening ceremony seems like a decent effort, but in fact it had the world cringing in embarrassment. Placed in the seemingly foolproof position of shooting at goal from about three yards out with no goalkeeper, the singer still managed to toe-poke it wide, at which point the goal automatically broke in half, as if in shock.

BILL EDGAR

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