Let’s cut to the chase. Why are England playing Saturday’s friendly against Brazil in Doha, Qatar, more than 3,000 miles and seven hours’ flying time from London — not to mention 7,000 miles from Rio de Janeiro?

The obvious answer is money, but before you start accusing the FA of shamelessly pursuing cash, this is a different case. Effectively it is payback for Brazil’s appearance in the opening England game at the new Wembley two-and-a-half years ago.

How so?

Well, when Brazil played at Wembley in June 2007, money at the FA was so tight that the £1.2 million appearance fee had to be paid by Kentaro, which acts as “match agent” to the five-times world champions. To secure Brazil’s visit, the FA left itself at the mercy of Kentaro when it came to staging a return fixture before the 2010 World Cup finals. That fixture was always going to be held wherever Kentaro could raise the highest match fee, hence Doha, the capital of oil-rich Qatar.

When have we heard of Kentaro before?

It is the Swiss-based company that ensured England’s World Cup qualifier against Ukraine last month could be watched live only on the internet. In November 2007 it signed a four-year deal with the FA for the distribution of international media rights for the England team, but Brazil are its main focus — and for good reason.

So, are Brazil — and Kentaro — the real winners here?

Yes. The FA will bank an estimated £400,000 for the game, which is nice work if you can get it, but the event — for which Brazil will receive a reported £4 million — is effectively the latest stop in what Kentaro calls the “Brazil World Tour”, a globetrotting exercise that has led Dunga’s team to play ten of their past 11 friendly matches outside South America. And before you raise the old argument that this is to benefit their European-based players, consider that in the past two years Brazil have played friendly matches in Chicago, Boston and Seattle, as well as Dortmund, Montpellier, Dublin and London. And they will be playing against Oman next week — just to get experience of facing top-class opposition, naturally.

It must be a nice earner. Any danger the FA will look to go down the same path?

Not as a regular pursuit when playing in front of full houses at Wembley is so central to its business plan to pay for the stadium. They are two very different agendas.

Apart from the £400,000, a bit of sunshine and the chance to test Fabio Capello’s team against Brazil, are there any other benefits to this game?

There is the chance for the FA’s dignitaries to rub shoulders with Mohammed bin Hammam, one of the 24 Fifa executive committee members who will vote on which country hosts the 2018 World Cup finals. The problem is that he is rather more eager to use the opportunity to publicise Qatar’s rival bid. Still, nice to look forward to a game against Brazil, isn’t it?

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