The Best Fifa Awards: a pantomime in Paris staged by the Imperial star fleet

A n hour or so – or it may have been two hours or 12 hours or seven minutes – into the brain-clogging fug of sound and light and sullen football legend applause (a thing about football legends: they don’t really like clapping other people) that was the The Best Fifa Awards 2022, Jermaine Jenas made a mistake.

You had to watch carefully to catch it. And it should be said Jenas did pretty well overall in his role as co-host, alongside the agreeably brusque Samantha Johnson. True, Jenas did insist on calling Gianni Infantino “Mr President” and “President Infantino”, coming on like a lovelorn Marilyn Monroe in a chiffon gown under aggressively paranoid surveillance by the CIA. But he was genial and slick and essentially always the same substance, an unwavering stream of homogenised Jenas, the TV presenting equivalent of supermarket brioche.

His one mistake was to refer to the final of Qatar 2022 as “one of the best”, and to do so with Mr President standing next to him. Almost indiscernibly, the air inside the hall turned chill beneath the hard white lights. “The Best final ever of the Best World Cup ever,” Gianni corrected, not angry, just saddened and disappointed and, yes, inconsolably furious in ways, Jermaine, that I will never fully tell you about.

Shortly after the point was reinforced by a live rendition of the official anthem – and there will, sadly, be unofficial ones out there – of the The Best Awards 2022, including the lyrics, “We’re the best yeah yeah we’re the best yeah yeah” over uplifting major chord sequences, like an advert for razor blades featuring handsome, flinty, men playing volleyball on a trampoline.

A bit later Alexia Putellas was enthroned as “officially The Best” (Gianni, very clear on this) and