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If it wasn't for my local dog-fighting league, I don't know how I'd get my fix of clean, competitive sport - Des Kelly

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Please note, in this week’s newspaper there are a few references to actual sport. If you look carefully you will find them.

Should you wish to read genuine sporting information I advise you to confine yourself to these sections and skip quickly through the rest.

The coverage is often dominated by organised crime, drug use, match-fixing, illegal gambling, issues of medical confidentiality, unprofessional conduct, questionable business practice, spitting and associated incidents of anti-social behaviour, which all bubbles away in a stinking, unholy stew of corruption. If it wasn’t for my local dog-fighting league, I don’t know how I’d get my fix of clean,  competitive sport?

Shocking: Europol announced this week that a Champions League match in England, reported to be Liverpool v Debrecen, was one of hundreds of football games to be fixed

      More from Des Kelly...   DES KELLY: Well, nothing lasts forever... it's been a blast! Sportsmail's brilliant columnist bows out after almost a decade at the top 31/05/13   Des Kelly: When it came to the most important tick of his career clock, Sir Alex bowed out at the perfect moment 10/05/13   DES KELLY: The idea that governing bodies are serious about exposing drug cheats is a myth... the cover-up makes my blood boil 03/05/13   Des Kelly: Sorry Liverpool, this isn't a conspiracy by the PM, FA, MI5, British Dental Association, and Society Against Cannibalism in Sport 26/04/13   Des Kelly: An immense river of humanity will flow through London... the marathon must produce mighty roar of defiance 19/04/13   DES KELLY: Fans come a distant second to Cup cash 12/04/13   Des Kelly: Forget his politics... is Paolo really up to the job? 05/04/13   Des Kelly: The evidence is so subtle many missed it... is this bonfire a case of smoke and mirrors? 29/03/13   Des Kelly: British taxpayers have just handed West Ham a stadium worth half a billion pounds... where's my bit of this £630m council house? 22/03/13   VIEW FULL ARCHIVE

In fact, without the pictures of MP Chris Huhne burying the remains of his career in the car park recently vacated by Richard III’s skeleton it would have been difficult to tell the front of the newspaper from the back.

Our national pastimes are under more scrutiny than ever and the forensic evidence being uncovered is truly appalling. It’s like watching hotel inspectors arrive at a five-star institution, train an ultra-violet light on seemingly pristine white sheets, and reveal previously hidden stains of ghastly disease and contamination.

Within the past few days, police chiefs have said European football is rife with match-fixing deceit, the Australian government has announced their sports are riddled with drug use and the never-ending scandals in cycling now threaten to suck other sports into the mire.

Europol, the police liaison body, declared they knew of almost 700 games where Asian gambling syndicates had influenced results. They included FIFA internationals and a Champions League match involving Liverpool and the Hungarian side Debrecen, although there is no suggestion the Anfield club were implicated.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger described this as a ‘tsumami’ for football and added ‘sport is full of legends who are also cheats. It is time that we tackled this problem in a very serious way’.

How did football’s hierarchy react? With a shrug, of course. What else would you expect with Sepp Blatter in charge? The old duffer supposedly running FIFA insisted with tragi-comic timing: ‘Most of the matches which they put in this tray — 600 or 800 — have already been analysed, dealt with and were even at court.’

That’s right— 600 or 800, what’s 200 between friends? His message was ‘there’s nothing to see here, move along’ — 24 hours after FIFA launched a website where whistleblowers could report corruption among its 209 member nations. No doubt the server crashed.

Shocking: Australian sport was rocked by news of 'widespread' drug use, including in Aussie Rules

In Australia they have no time for such evasion. The Australian Crime Commission brutally laid waste to the country’s sporting landscape by saying performance-enhancing drugs were in widespread use across many disciplines, with sports scientists, doctors, coaches and support staff dealing directly with organised crime networks.

Banned human growth hormones in rugby and Australian Rules football are at the heart of this case, but the ACC said ‘multiple athletes’ in ‘a number of sporting codes’ were ‘cheating with the help of criminals’.

Sponsors are already running away faster than rugby league and Aussie Rules organisers can set up their ‘integrity commissions’.

Lance Armstrong didn’t start this, but his disgrace has brought a new focus to the process of re-examining sport. The American dope cheat is also saying he will now ‘assist in efforts to clean up cycling’ by co-operating with investigators.

Devastating: Arsene Wenger said sport is full of legends who are cheats

Good. He was the most cynical culprit to date, but he was never the only drug cheat. We have always known that. But if he dares to whine about his so-called persecution and claim he is some kind of  ‘scapegoat’, I’d suggest he watches the Nike advert where he boasts: ‘This is my body and I can do whatever I want to it. Everybody wants to know what I am on. What am I on? I’m on my bike busting my ass six hours a day. What are you on?’

Personally, I’m on a mission to tie Armstrong to a chair, hold his eyelids open with toothpicks and make him watch that garbage over and over again, slapping him around the face with the remote control until he comes to his senses. And if he doesn’t, who loses? Or maybe I’m just having a bit of ‘roid rage, there.

So there is more scandal to come. The names that fall could be even bigger than Armstrong. Eufemiano Fuentes, the doctor at the centre of a pivotal doping trial in Spain, says he ‘worked with all types of athletes — footballers, cyclists, boxers and tennis players’.

Cheat: Lance Armstrong admitted, in an interview with Oprah, to doping in all seven Tour de France wins

Investigators seized 200 bags of blood marked with codenames in 2006. So far the judge has not encouraged Fuentes to volunteer the identity of any names implicated beyond the world of cycling.Fuentes said: ‘I could identify all the samples (of blood). If you give me a list I could tell you who corresponds to each code on the packs.’

The judge used privacy as a defence, because doping was not even a crime in Spain until a law change in November 2006. But the names will emerge and the fear is that champions may be about to fall.

Perhaps football is next. Maybe tennis after that. When we don’t believe in what we see, when sport becomes a pumped up, drug-fuelled, line-dance of pre-conceived cheating and dummy moves, like the charade of WWE wrestling, then it’s done. It’s over. The whole house of cards comes crashing down. Someone pass me the tablets.

New wage rules are a total sham

Having spent years defending the power of market forces, Premier League clubs are now busy pulling up the drawbridge behind them.

Club owners are placing limits on spending and wages not because they are suddenly concerned about concepts of ‘financial fair play’ or the wider implications of fiscal restraint.

They are slapping on the shackles to stop players taking a bigger chunk of their vast new TV riches. They’re filling their boots just like everyone else. Something fishy must be going on when Chelsea’s Roman Abramovich — the poster boy for buying success — votes in favour of a clampdown.

Moneybags: Man City have splashed the cash in their bid for Premier League domination

Rolling in it: Chelsea have spent hundreds of millions under Roman Abramovich

There are restrictions on debt, which is right, and threats of points deductions, but no limits on spending from sponsorship income. That is an open invitation for the big clubs to be more creative with their accounting. Billionaires can sponsor themselves and it will be hard for any court to prove otherwise.

The direct link between match-day income and spending also means ticket prices may rise. And it is worth noting that while players’ wages were being curbed, no club representative in the room was calling for restraint on executive pay. Funny that.

Premier League chief Richard Scudamore brokered a tricky compromise between clubs with vastly different aims and budgets. What we’ve ended up with won’t solve much, won’t change much, but apparently we had to act anyway.

Brian O'Driscoll... a true sporting role model

Want a sporting role model? Try Brian O’Driscoll. The Irish rugby legend grows in stature by the year and his performance against Wales last weekend was exemplary. O’Driscoll did everything; from inspiring a magnificent first-half battering, to filling in at scrum-half, orchestrating the defence when a Wales comeback threatened, and making a gourmet dinner for the team afterwards.

Only one of those is made up. I hope he wins the Six Nations. I hope he leads the British and Irish Lions Down Under this summer, too. He deserves it. Wherever your allegiance, you must acknowledge his excellence.

Role model: Brian O'Driscoll scored a try in Ireland's win over Wales last weekend

Spurs in trouble now Adebayor is flying solo

All week I have been reading how Tottenham Hotspur were ‘racing Emmanuel Adebayor back’ from the Africa Cup of Nations, making ‘special flight arrangements’ for him, or simply sweating on whether he would arrive in time for today’s encounter with Newcastle United.

The player has been in South Africa, not some obscure backwater.

There are plenty of direct flights to London every day. His team were knocked out of the competition last Sunday and yet he only managed to return to his day job yesterday afternoon.

Thin: Jermain Defoe's (left) injury means Tottenham's only fit striker is Emmanuel Adebayor (right)

The injury to Jermain Defoe has left Spurs with one fit, senior attacker. Unfortunately for them, it is Adebayor.

‘He had issues to take care of,’ said manager Andre Villas Boas. Adebayor always has issues. That’s the trouble.

The Champions League returns with a mouth-watering glamour tie

Real Madrid host Manchester United this week. It is exactly the sort of glamour tie the Champions League was designed for - Cristiano Ronaldo versus Robin van Persie; Wayne Rooney versus Luka Modric. OK, so it’s not just about glamour, but there’s history and grandeur as well. It’s a special encounter, but the Special One has been quiet of late.

Jose Mourinho is clearly on his way from the Bernabeu at the end of the season.

While United are clear at the top of the Premier League, Mourinho’s Real are 16 points behind Barcelona and seven behind Atletico Madrid, with reports of dressing-room splits and turmoil.

Giants: Manchester United will travel to Real Madrid this week for an eagerly-awaited Champions League tie

With his La Liga campaign in tatters, a Champions League exit in the last 16 against United will mark the low point of his career.

The rumour is he might even accept a job back at Chelsea, the club that booted him out for being ‘unmanageable’.

It’s looking distinctly less than special - and all the more fascinating for it.

  More... Blood pressure: Wenger demands that new tests are introduced to help snare football's drug cheats United v Real? No, it's Ronaldo against Van Persie, insists legend Van Nistelrooy Ireland unchanged for England clash to make intriguing Lions battle of the backs














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