News is reaching me deep in my Middle East watering hole that Qatar will keep the World Cup venue in 9 years time despite the row over how extreme heat will effect play.

‘Word just reached me this morning that it gets hot here in summer’  Septic Bladder, the boss of the international football organisation FIFA, revealed to me. ‘It really does come as something of a shock.’

‘No one ever realised that a Middle East country near the equator and surrounded by sand could be warm in July or August.’

‘We were  so bent on getting the best value for the fans that we never asked what the temperatures would be like.’

‘Honest.’

Mr Bladder  said to me in the telephonic conversation: ‘When I met Qatar shieks in the Cayman Island State Bank HQ for Undisclosed Payments, they never mentioned that Doha reached 165C in the summer. I thought it was just like the Alps in the spring…except the ski-ing isn’t as good”

Mr Bladder has ordered a topnotch report into the heat problem. It is promised to be delivered doublequick  to FIFA bosses by 2024- two years after the World Cup. ‘We want to make all efforts to ensure no facts get in the way of Project Deep Pockets  and our fantastic relationship with Cayman bankers’ he confided to me.

Bladder: Saddened by heat news

He went on: ‘I know that football fans from around the globe can’t wait to book their flights to Doha to enjoy the guaranteed sunshine. And they can enjoy the great nightlife too in Qatar after they are released from hospital for hyperthermia, heat stroke, desert fever, blindness and hallucinations.’

‘I will envy them’ he commented in the telephonic facility opportunity, ‘I myself can’t go to Qatar during the tournament in summer of 2022. I will have to keep on working from my air conditioned  Geneva palace to ensure it all goes smoothly. I just cannot get away.’

Crowds enjoy the nightlife in Doha

The FIFA president said he will also tackle the concerns over slave labour in the building of the Qatari stadia. ‘It is not true that Nepali workers have never been paid and sleep tied to scaffolding.’

‘But we will ensure they enjoy safe standards so we’ve  shipped 100,000 sunhats to the workforce so they don’t get a bit of a burn.’

Phil, a football fanatic and a well known used car dealer in Yorkshire, said: ‘I’ve already bought my tickets to Doha. I can’t wait to get ill from heat exhaustion and not drink booze for a month. And, by the way, I am discounting all 4×4 Discovery models that come complete with extra water tanks strapped to the roof so no one dies from thirst.’

‘And that’s a promise.’

@sirhowardelston