MOST agree that education should be free, but every four years England's footballers are given, at no cost, a master class in how the beautiful game should be played and every four years they fail to pay any attention.

Perhaps, then, the only way to get our players to concentrate on their lessons would be to charge them for the privilege of playing at the World Cup school of football.

Drastic measures you might say, but something needs to be done to coerce these very average men into listening, because, as a colleague put it so succinctly the other day, they all treat the ball as an enemy, not a friend.

An interesting observation and one perfectly illustrated during the pre-tournament friendlies, particularly in the game against Ecuador.

Now you might think the concept of playing warm up matches in a warm climate against Latin American opponents would be to hone the skills required to cope with Brazilian jungle conditions.

Not a bit of it. Instead we witnessed the same old, same old; run as fast as possible and hoof the ball into the air, usually to someone wearing a different coloured shirt. God forbid any useful possession skills might be practised.

How different from the Ecuadorians who relished any opportunity to have the ball. And when they passed it, an inch perfect stroke along the ground generally resulted; a free tutorial for anyone prepared to learn, you might think.

However, England's footballers aren't interested in learning; to them the game is, and always has been, about randomly launching the ball skywards. Maybe there should be a fine for this kind of thing, how about £100,000? After all that's not even a week's pay for some Premier League players.

Frustratingly, the beautiful game is not rocket science, but our team will pay no attention to the masterclass on offer this month, preferring, as ever, to kick and rush like Accrington Stanley did in the 1930s.

Which is precisely why they will come home empty handed.

IT isn't just the England team that should listen to a few home truths. Their crime is simply being unable to play decent football, but FIFA is guilty of something far worse; of turning the World Cup into a shambles.

The problem, as ever, is money and too much of it has been spent on white elephants by a country that insists it can't even afford to build houses, schools or hospitals.

And when Brazil finally gets round to counting the cost of hosting a tournament that was supposed to help its economy, FIFA will have walked away with all the money.

Indeed, this year's World Cup should generate $4 billion for the Swiss-based organisation; 66 per cent more than the 2010 tournament in South Africa, which also busted the host nation.

And as a not-for-profit company, under Swiss law FIFA will pay no tax on it.

Some might call this scandalous, many Brazilians certainly think so, as last year's riots testified. Since then their country has spent more than $11 billion on stadiums and infrastructure to meet FIFA's criteria and it won't stop there. Not surprisingly, people were back on the streets last week to point out that this is money the country can ill afford.

One of the protesters carried a banner proclaiming 'FIFA go home'. In a few weeks it will and hopefully for the last time, if the Qatar scandal becomes the organisation's undoing.

Even if it does survive, blackballing FIFA would still be perfectly possible with a bit of political backbone. Then the World Cup could stop being an exercise in pillaging host countries and once again be about football.

Which would be great, even if England doesn't stand a cat in hell's chance of winning it.