In Football Football, Bouzard lifts the veil on the sordid underworld of contemporary football. No, Steve Marlet (the forward) is not the hidden love child of Bob Marley (the singer). And there’s no connection between Rothen (Jérôme, of the Paris St-Germain FC) and Rotten (Johnny, of the Sex Pistols). Apart from that, we learn at last why Brazilians make such good footballers and how Raymond Domenech really puts together the French team. A most instructive book !

Bouzard has invented a whole new genre, the football gag. In a the space of a single page, he dissects the unacknowledged secrets of today’s world of football : its little eccentricities as well as its most prominent – and ridiculous – contradictions.