Hoddle's kick-and-tell tale tests outer limits of decency

There was always going to be a library full of kick-and-tell books about the World Cup, such was the global interest in France 98.

You've seen the action, watched the replays, cringed at the commentary and read the reports, now learn what happened in the dressing rooms, hotel rooms, training camps, team buses, hospital wards, nightclubs and houses of ill repute during the Coupe du Monde.

Every World Cup has its share of off-field dirt which is merely hinted at during the event - it takes an in-the-know journalist, disillusioned player or money-motivated organiser to put a bit of meat on the skeletons rattling away in those lockers.

Was Ronaldo fit and did he have a fit? Is the Nike contract with Brazil so water-tight that Mario Zagallo had to play him in the final? Why did Faustino Asprilla flee from the Colombian camp? Does dyeing your hair cause a chemical reaction which addles the brain? These and many more tantalising tidbits are being fleshed out for our delectation by authors more interested in dollar rewards than Pulitzer Prizes. Some will be tawdry, some intriguing, but, on the whole, harmless.

Or so we thought. It's stretching the 'publish and be damned' ethos when a coach, who survived the axe so ruthlessly brought down on several of his peers, goes into print about his side's World Cup campaign.

Born-again Christian Glenn Hoddle has published his own 'Book of Revelations' about England's doomed title tilt and his diary includes confidences players were entitled to think were for his ears only.

There is a body of opinion that Hoddle is a couple of pages short of a full chapter and the World Cup publishing venture tends to support that view.