GIVEN the overwhelming stench of corruption wafting around the corridors of FIFA, news that Sepp Blatter and his fellow presidential candidates have passed "integrity tests" will come as little surprise.

Public perception of a tenuous connection between FIFA and integrity suggests Adolf Hitler was more likely to be red-carded by the Waffen SS than Herr Blatter is of being ruled off-side by the investigatory chamber of FIFA's electoral committee. This week they have declared Blatter and his three rivals eligible for election at their congress on May 29.

Seeking a fifth term, Blatter is opposed by HRH Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein (Jordan), Luís Figo (Portugal) and Michael van Praag (Netherlands). Groucho-like, we wonder why they would wish to be president of FIFA if it would accept them as president.

It is clear that whatever Blatter's personal role - and rows of question marks circumscribe that - he has been general secretary and ceo during a period in which serial FIFA involvement in scandal and corruption beggars belief.

The most recent allegation came within hours of the integrity commission endorsement of Blatter's candidature. German media published emails claiming that FIFA's director of legal affairs had edited lengthy passages in a report from an independent governance committee which proposed sweeping changes in a bid to repair the world body's tarnished image.

It is now claimed that this report had been watered down to protect Blatter. Among redactions allegedly made by the FIFA director of legal affairs, Marco Villiger, was one excising mention of Blatter's role in a scandal involving FIFA's marketing partner, International Sports Leisure (ISL), which went bankcrupt with debts in excess of $300m.

Villiger is also the man responsible for blocking publication of a FIFA report into possible corruption around the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids. He has since been obliged to back off and permit a redacted version in order to protect witnesses.

When the chairman of FIFA's ethics committee, Hans-Joachim Eckert, reported on ISL bribery he said Blatter had been "clumsy" in handling a $1m bribe meant for the then FIFA president, Joao Havelange. Eckert said however that this did not lead Blatter (then FIFA ceo) to "any criminal or ethical misconduct."

Bringing Blatter's naivete, incompetence - or worse - back under the microscope now, with elections looming, is hardly in the Swiss president's best interests. Yet none of Blatter's troubled history appears to have impacted on FIFA's investigatory arm earlier this week.

"Commissions" - we would call them bribes - had been paid to help secure World Cup marketing and TV rights, most notably in South America. Havelange and the former head of Brazil's football federation, Ricardo Teixeira, both stood down when court documents exposed them as having received ISL inducements. They escaped prosecution as this was not a crime under prevailing Swiss law.

A spokesman for Michel Platini, who is intent on undermining Blatter, said the latest revelations showed: "FIFA's Independent Governance Committee was anything but independent." UEFA had wondered why it was accused of blocking FIFA reforms. This week's revelations explain that.

This is just one more chapter in the voluminous catalogue of shameful dealings on Blatter's watch: failure to investigate bribery allegations surrounding ISL - allegedly 175 of them totalling about $100m. Trinidad and Tobago's Jack Warner has recurrently surfaced in a range of allegations which eventually forced him out of FIFA. Eventually the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) published a report into the Warner regime a CONCACAF. It concluded Warner committed fraud. However, as he resigned voluntarily, FIFA say: "all ethics committee procedures against him have been closed and the presumption of innocence is maintained."

Blatter said FIFA did not investigate allegations that Warner re-sold World Cup tickets to touts because it had not been reported through "official channels".

Lord Triesman, the former FA chairman - spitting feathers in the wake of England's failure to host the World Cup - compared FIFA to "a mafia family", citing "decades-long traditions of bribes, bungs and corruption."

There have been allegations of vote-rigging and cronyism, claims that FIFA has required potential World Cup hosts to implement special laws including tax exemption for FIFA and sponsors - akin to the UK tax holiday for Olympic athletes. When the Dutch government refused, FIFA said this could compromise their bid.

Corruption, incompetence, and lack of transparency are endemic in FIFA. Ditto Formula 1. It's no coincidence that it's been suggested both sports would be the better if the parent body was abolished. Blatter and Bernie Eccleston are birds of a feather. Don't bet on either going without a fight.

And another thing. . .

A TEAM in the top division of Belgian rugby has just been defeated 356-3. Royal Kituro logged up 56 tries and 38 conversions on Sunday against Soignies whose points came from a long-range drop goal.

The match referee turned up more than an hour after the scheduled kick-off, by which time

many of the visiting team had left, thinking the match was off. But Soignies did have 16 players, and rather then forfeit a "loser's point" for turning up, they agreed to "play". But they did not compete as Kituro ran-in try after try under the posts, unchallenged.

If I were the Kituro coach I'd have at least one question: how did they miss 18 conversion

attempts from in front of the posts?

Soignies, incidentally, are still third in the league, despite, surely the biggest defeat in rugby history. One point ahead of Kituro.

Funny old game.