How do you solve a problem like FIFA?

That’s a question being pondered this morning by people far more knowledgeable about the beautiful game than me – both of them – and the heads of government, sports governing bodies and newshounds across the globe.

The simple answer is that it is not going to be simple, not when you have a body that has been allowed pretty much free rein to do whatever it likes, wherever it likes, for as long as it likes.

However, there is one simple thing that can be done to ensure that nobody ever secures such an iron grasp over the running of world football’s governing body as Sepp Blatter has done over the past 17 years.

In the current world of FIFA, Andorra and Brazil are equal. That’s not to say they are equally important in terms of attracting sponsorship, attention, or anything else that Blatter and his colleagues deem to be important, or that they would draw on the pitch.

But when it comes to making decisions about things like, ooh, I dunno, who gets to host a World Cup or who is FIFA president, the score between the tiny mountain co-principality and the land of samba is very much 1-1.

That is despite the fact that reliable FIFA numbers – aren’t they always? – claim there are 5,037 active players in Andorra, compared with 13.2 million in Brazil.

The fact that each country gets one vote towards who will host the next major tournament is what’s gotten us into this situation in the first place.

So the quickest way I can think of to ensure things are done more fairly... so that England, the home of football, gets more voice than, say, Montserrat is to work out the number of votes based on the number of active, or even registered, players in each association.

Of course there are still stupid people in larger countries and it’s not going to prevent big associations voting for dark-horse candidates.

However, it’s less likely that the vote from a tiny Micronesian country who have recently benefited from new facilities will be influential.

It has to be a better way.

o0o

Anyway, you can stand down now, KM lawyers, I want to talk about Messi and Ronaldo.

To me, and Swiss Tony, football is very much like beautiful women. One man likes blondes and curling free-kicks into the top corner, another might prefer brunettes and slalom runs past four defenders before a dinked finish. Each to his own.

Who is the best player of all time? Pele? Maradona? Cruyff? Ronaldo? Messi? Nope, sorry, there is no answer to that question, any more than there is to the question about the best work of art, song or film.

Ronaldo and Messi might well be the two greatest to a lot of people – personally, I’m in the Messi camp – but I’m glad they’re not facing off in Saturday night’s Champions League final.

An El Clasico showpiece is littered with diving, time-wasting and gamesmanship, so Lord knows what sort of a spectacle it would have been. No, I’m glad of the chance to watch Pirlo conducting the midfield, the energy of Paul Pogba and the battle between Buffon and the Messi-Neymar-Suarez axis, plus Xavi’s swansong.

The midfielder is 35-years-old and has won 24 trophies in his career. By contrast, Chelsea have won 21 in 110 years.