We all know that British football ceased being just ‘the beautiful game’ some time back – at least in the top flight, when the Premiership became a competition (or lack of it) between the richest PLCs in the sport. Rarely, however, has a football ‘financier’ been as frank as Tom Hicks, the Texan billionaire who recently completed a leveraged buy-out of the iconic Liverpool Football Corporation.

the world cup

Is football ‘the new religion’? It’s been mine all along. At least, I’ve followed club and country religiously for longer than I care to remember, through bad times and (occasionally) good. But there’s something extra special about the World Cup that brings many of us to our knees.

If you don't like football, look away now. Better still, leave the country. Or, the continent. Football, you see, is coming home, and the journey for England starts this Sunday against France.

The European Championships will generate much hot air, several miles of column inches, and plenty of exposure for the players in this lucrative game of global marketing. The biggest brands - Beckham, Zidane, Henry, Figo et al - will flash us their Va Va Voom, and the corporate logos will be all over them like a rash.

Today, one of the most pleasing English inventions chugs back into gear like a lawnmower spluttering for breath on its first outing of the spring. And with it comes an array of delightfully sensual experiences – the first whiff of freshly cut grass; the rattle of leather on willow; the sight of flannelled villagers scoring flashes of white across billiard-green pitches.

Who’ll win the 50th BBC Sports Personality of the Year this Sunday? David Beckham? Paula Radcliffe? Andrew Flintoff?

They can dream on. There’s surely no competition, despite not just one but two rugby players being in the front running to lift the trophy.

Holy relics are usually garnered from those for whom life's final whistle has already shrilled. But the second metatarsal bone on David Beckham's left foot has been the subject of such reverential scrutiny that you could be forgiven for believing a saint already walks - or at least limps - among us.