James Lawton: Eriksson voices dark suspicions that must no longer be ignored

Eriksson's alleged exposé of corruption: Four sentences or 36 words that could have dire consequences for the England manager

Now, whether he or his embattled legal advisers like it or not, he has elected himself No 1 prosecution witness in the previously lukewarm pursuit of the belief that English football is rotten to the core.

That is a serious charge but Eriksson has made it - and it does not matter one iota that he thought he was doing it casually in the company of a sheikh who might just take over Aston Villa and hand him £5m a year tax-free as the club's new manager.

The major revelation of the News of the World "sting" team is that Eriksson and his agent, Athole Still, told them that three Premiership clubs - one of them "famous" - are guilty of corruption and that one manager, branded "the worst", has been taking backhanders.

This, if the Football Association retains a shred of responsibility or weight, cannot be allowed to rest on the table. It cannot be lost in frantic Eriksson backtracking or desperate legal action like the issuing last week of a suit against the newspaper for a breach of confidence.

Breach of confidence? Confidence in Eriksson and the working ethics of English football can never have run so low.

For a week the latest "Svengate" was no more than a routine recycling of his long famous, or, depending on your moral compass, notorious weakness for the rich life and financial advancement and a cavalier approach to contractual obligations. Now it is in an entirely different category. It is a story that casts terrible doubts into all corners of the national game and it cannot any longer be ignored, effectively, by the FA.

Whatever the inconveniences and embarrassments on the run-in to this summer's World Cup finals, the duty facing the FA chief executive, Brian Barwick, is quite straightforward. He has asked the newspaper for all relevant materials, including videos and tape recordings. He must then present the details to Eriksson and ask him to explain his devastating assertions.

Anything short of this will surely represent a total abandonment of responsibility. Painfully ironic though it may be, the FA's most pampered, best -rewarded servant has managed to destabilise both his own position and that of the entire organisation.

The FA certainly should not be reluctant to do business with the newspaper that has so tormented it over the last few days. It ran to the News of the World quickly enough when trying to save the skin of its former chief executive, Mark Palios, when he was caught out, along with Eriksson, in an affair with an office secretary. Then the head of Eriksson was offered on a platter in exchange for silence on the Palios matter.

Now we have moved so far beyond the tittle-tattle of bedroom escapades. Now we are talking about the entire credibility of the English game.

Barwick has already been pilloried - rightly - for doing no more than exchange a few pleasantries when one prospective whistle-blower, Mike Newell, showed up at the FA's Soho Square offices. Now the evidence of another lower-echelon football man, Ian Holloway, manager of Queen's Park Rangers, is being sought.

That's fine in the proper assembling of a wide body of facts. But with Eriksson it is another matter. The England coach has voiced the unspoken fears of so many decent people in football. He has said, and it is on the electronic record, that the game has indeed been reduced to a cockpit of corruption.

For the FA the situation is nightmarish because if it does not act now there is unquestionably a case for government intervention. Those who have argued that the game has lost the right to govern itself, that football was too important in the life of the nation to be left in a quagmire of incompetence and, perhaps, graft, can now enlist the opinions of the national coach.

The Sports Minister, Richard Caborn, and his Olympic Games' drum-beating superior, Tessa Jowell, read the newspapers. Their first calls this morning should concern the extent - or lack - of FA action. Familiarity with the results of government inquiries does not encourage faith in such a route, but the time for some independent examination of football has surely arrived.

Before the latest development, David Dein, a member of the FA international committee who was happy enough to take some credit for landing the Serie A-winning Lazio coach Eriksson, merely added to the weight of anodyne reaction to the national coach's latest demonstration of avarice and, it has to be said, naïvety. He said: "Was he indiscreet? Was he naïve? I think he would probably admit he was both. I think given his time again he would have done things differently and we all acknowledge that."

When it was suggested that Eriksson's proneness to public-relations disasters meant his days as England coach were numbered, he said: "Yes, I agree... I can see both sides of the argument. In the end he will be judged by his ability as a coach." Dein suggested a decision would await the end of the World Cup finals.

Perhaps he too believes that somewhere along this murky road there is a golden pay-off, an all-cleansing climax of World Cup success. But increasingly such noises are beginning to sound like so many whistles on the way past the graveyard of decency in English football.

Victory in Germany may or may not happen, but in the mean time the FA has to do more than sit on its hands and hope for the best. It has to address the fact that the man entrusted with the national team apparently has reason to be believe that the game is shot through with corruption. He cannot be allowed just to leave it there amid the dirty linen and silverware of a seven-star business dinner. On pain of dismissal, he must be asked to come clean.

n WHAT SVEN ACTUALLY SAID

Sven Goran Eriksson's agent, Athole Still, issued a statement last night to highlight what he believes are inaccuracies in the News of the World's claims about what Eriksson had said about corruption in Dubai.

"At no time did Mr Eriksson or Mr Still say that 'top Premiership clubs are riddled with corruption'," the statement said. "Careful reading of the articles shows that both Mr Eriksson and Mr Still were reacting conversationally to a topical subject of debate initiated by their hosts and already being discussed in football circles and the media. At no time did either Mr Eriksson or Mr Still claim to have any evidence in relation to improper transfer dealings in football." A dissection of the article's contents, rather than headlines, shows that Eriksson's total contribution to the subject comprised four sentences, or 36 words.

The first two sentences come when an undercover reporter initiated a conversation about a specific manager, whom the reporter leadingly described as "a stereotypical dodgy manager". Eriksson said: "He's the worst." The reporter said: "He's the most corrupt?" Eriksson said: "Yeah." Athole Still then talked about another manager who he alleged pulled "a big scam", and mentioned a third club, alluding to malpractice.

Eriksson himself is not reported as saying anything about these clubs, and neither Still nor Eriksson offered any evidence of corruption. Eriksson's only other words quoted on the subject were: "If I come there [Aston Villa], I don't want to have anything to do with money, money to transfer, because in England it's always this." The newspaper reported that he swayed at this point "to indicate wheeler dealing".

When asked by the reporter whether managers always get involved with transfers, Eriksson's reply was reported as: "Yeah [muffled] and of course they put money in their pocket."

The News of The World's headlines included: "Eriksson Exposes Manager He Claims Is Most Corrupt"; "This Man Is A Crook", and "[Sven] tells us WHO takes backhanders".