The Sunday Times' exposure of alleged fifa 14 ps3 coins corruption in Fifa's choice of countries to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups is overwhelming. Yet Michael Garcia, the American lawyer appointed by Fifa to inquire into previous similar allegations, has said he will ignore it. His inquiry is rendered a farce. The further any public activity drifts from accountability, the more it invites suspicion. When the activity is as popular and profitable as international sport, the scope for venality seems limitless. Distant oligarchies write their own constitutions and account only to equally introverted national associations. They seem immune to criticism or pressure to reform, many of them ensconced in Switzerland's haven for the secretive and the tax averse.

All that is new in the Sunday Times revelation is the weight of the evidence, seemingly millions of emails leaked by a whistleblower and strongly denied by Qatar. Fifa itself does little but organise World Cups, amassing a revenue reserve of $1. 4bn in the process. Yet its history since 2006, when the maverick journalist Andrew Jennings began his inquiries, could be a script for The Godfather. Jennings's allegations, followed up by Panorama and the Sunday Times, are a catalogue of slush funds, kickbacks, bribes and favouritism. Commercial offshoots are said to be run by insiders and family members of the Fifa president, Sepp Blatter. Fifa's claim is that host countries benefit from its blessings. The audit on South Africa's 2010 World Cup showed it cost the taxpayers ï¿¡3bn for a return of ï¿¡323m and an economic slump.

This month's extravaganza in Brazil, which was pledged to cost the ill-resourced country nothing, has seen state spending on stadiums alone of ï¿¡2bn, with another ï¿¡9bn on infrastructure. Qatar is reputed to be spending a staggering ï¿¡120bn. These sums for a brief sporting festival are obscene, whoever is paying. To each and every accusation of corruption, Fifa gives a flat denial or a "not proven". Blatter casts aside rivals, critics and gross offenders, such as the Caribbean's Jack Warner, if they blatantly tarnish the image of his "family within". Bigwigs such as Henry Kissinger, Johan Cruyff and Lords Coe and Goldsmith are occasionally invited to dust Fifa with an aura of ethical sanctity. But when stories emerge of $40, 000 in hundred-dollar bills laid out for Fifa's Caribbean supporters, Fifa blithely explains www.fifa14store.co.uk them as "intended for distribution to the poor".