Ian Herbert: The narcissism of David Ginola is perfect for the joke bookie, but not for Fifa

COMMENT: Paddy Power reckoned he'd be a sucker for the publicity. They were right

David Ginola announces his candidacy for the presidency of Fifa – backed by bookmaker Paddy Power (REUTERS)

Are you going to tell him or am I? Because it’s been over a week now and David Ginola does not seem to be aware that he is doing irreparable damage to himself and his reputation by persisting in his narcissistic delusion that he can be president of Fifa.

Has he checked how much money his crowd-sourcing has raised since he stormed over the horizon 10 days ago, proclaiming he would change the world, with £2.3m his target? Precisely £6,271. That’s roughly what the local Oxfam shop my mother-in-law works in would expect to raise in a week or so in donated books, clothes and bric-a-brac. It leaves “TeamGinola” with £2,293,729 to find. But ah well, there’s 34 days of fund-raising left.

The breakdown of where that money has come from does nothing to alter the impression that Ginola, who was at central London’s Westway fitness centre and a networking organisation in Newport, Gwent, last week, is also in La-la Land. Precisely 56 people have donated £5; 45 have given £10, for which they get a downloadable certificate “to tell the grandkids about your vital role in rebooting football”; another nine have given £20, securing themselves a “Can we have our game back, please?” T-shirt and three have given £1,000. But no one has yet been tempted to give £5,000 and “go to a chosen Premier League game with David” – or the £8,000 option, which means dinner with David for the donor and three friends.

Paddy Power – the joke bookmaker – has paid Ginola £250,000 for his services in fronting up their latest joke stunt, too – cheap publicity at the price. When the whole piece of nonsense was launched last week, they listed that donation on the Team Ginola website, though that has now mysteriously vanished from there.

It is excruciating but I doubt Ginola will see it that way. When Paddy Power needed someone gullible enough to lead their stunt, an excruciating lack of self-awareness was a requirement. Perhaps they leafed through Ginola’s autobiography for evidence that he would love the attention. David Ginola – Le Magnifique, it is entitled and it’s none too bashful. “Wherever he has played, David Ginola has dazzled with his virtuoso skills, while off the field he has become a major sex symbol and an international celebrity,” it tells us. “Ginola is a man in demand. Everywhere he goes he attracts attention, whether it be mesmerising defenders on the field or parading down the catwalks of Paris and Milan away from football. But is there more to Ginola, the ‘sex symbol’…?”

The joke bookie reckoned he’d be a sucker for the publicity and they were right. He does not appear to have had the slightest notion just how badly his grilling by the British sports news lobby had gone, before its members exposed the intellectual bankruptcy of it all last Saturday. “Fifa president. How good would that be? It sounds awesome,” Ginola said privately, after the questioning.

You need to know that it’s all about the narcissism with Ginola. The looks, the confidence, the style: he figures that anything he tries his hand at he can achieve. Fronting a four-hour BT Sport programme in English? “No problem. Easy.” It didn’t take the broadcaster long to realise it was proving anything but. The same arrogance convinced him he would breeze into Aston Villa and Everton after a reasonably successful career at Tottenham Hotspur and be a big success. That was delusional too.

The French know this and they are laughing at “David le Magnifique” now. “Belle affiche, beau gosse, intelligent; pour être président de la Fifa il faut bien connaître l’Afrique” (nice poster, handsome, intelligent; to be Fifa president, you need to understand Africa) was the deadpan response of the French FA president, Noël Le Graët, this week. Well observed, though if Ginola had had a degree of the “intelligence” requisite of a Fifa president he would have genned up for that press briefing. Instead, when the first question was put there was a blank face.

The criteria to fulfil to secure a presidential candidacy include having held an “active role” in football for two years since 2010. Ginola says he qualifies through his advice to amateur club Étoile Fréjus, who play in the French third tier. The Fréjus president revealed last week that Ginola has not set foot in the club. His work with Fréjus was “mainly over the phone”.

The only ones who might consider themselves winners in this are the joke bookie. More in hope than expectation, I wondered if the cheap publicity they’ve secured might be a breach of Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) rules. Not so, it informs me, unless we see Ginola openly promoting the bookmaker’s products on his Twitter feed.

The ASA knows quite a lot about this joke company. It was the propagator of Britain’s most complained about advertisement of all time last year when The Sun on Sunday published its ad featuring an Oscar statuette of Oscar Pistorius ahead of his trial for the murder of Reeva Steenkamp, offering “money off if he walks”. Domestic violence, disability, the integrity of the sport they cream money out of: Paddy Power don’t care what they laugh at if there’s some free publicity at the end of it. You’d hope that those in sport who have taken their money and legitimised them – Joey Barton, Gareth Thomas, Ruby Walsh – would realise that and walk away.

The whole Ginola edifice creaked a little more yesterday when, in response to inquiries by the Associated Press, Fifa issued an election guide reminding official candidates for the presidency that they are bound by its ethics code. That includes the regulation which states: “Persons bound by this code shall be forbidden from taking part in, either directly or indirectly, or otherwise being associated with betting, gambling.” Spot the obvious flaw in the Ginola plan.

Significantly, the player’s camp subsequently announced it would refund contributions if the campaign is not successful – aware, perhaps, that it could face accusations of failing to study the regulations before encouraging football supporters to stump up donations under false pretences.

With four days left to secure the nomination of five of Fifa’s 209 federations, Ginola needs all the support he can get. If you want to put that fiver towards changing the world, you could put it towards further inflating the ego of a man with the vision of himself as David, El Presidente. Or you could buy on a few books in Oxfam instead. The choice doesn’t seem difficult.