The Football Association has overtaken England in Fifa’s world failure rankings after making a total hash of an inquiry into the whole Eniola Aluko thing.

The thing, a parliamentary hearing about alleged racism and blackmail within the England Women’s team set-up, looks really bad on former manager Mark Sampson and a bunch of others.

The FA’s bungled handling of it all failed so comprehensively that it outstripped even the achievements of England’s men’s team at last year’s European Championships.

Speaking exclusively to Football, an FA spokesperson remained upbeat.

They said: “Beating England has got to go down as a success no matter how rubbish they are.

“Look how much Iceland celebrated after beating them. It was like doing a Mortal Kombat ‘finish him’ move after swatting a fly.

“Actually it’s not really anything like that, is it? I don’t know why I said that.

“Okay, that’s twenty seconds, I better hang up before I say or do anything racist.”