Car companies keep scoring an own goal with their World Cup madness

CHAMPION readers who skip past the football coverage to get straight to the Motors section in next week's edition will be glad to discover it's a World Cup free zone. You're a winner just by reading it.

Anyone who's ever seen a Grand Prix, rally or touring cars clash already knows that cars and sport clearly do go together, but I think it's always going to play second fiddle to our jolly to South Africa because it's difficult to get patriotic in the world of all things petrolhead.

Everyone English is expected to back our boys in their bid for World Cup glory and I've always thought it gets a bit messy when car companies get in on the act; the travesty you see above is a Hyundai i10 festively dressed up as all things football, and it looks terrible. I liked the Italia '90-themed Fiat Uno with its nifty hubcaps disguised as footballs, but I think that one vehicle's the exception to the rule.

Ford I can forgive being in a football frenzy because at least their sports advertising is subtle, but dressing a supermini up as a sport is about as sensible as kitting out Wayne Rooney to look like a Kia Sedona. Can't we back our winners from the motoring world as well?

I've always reckoned it's difficult to get into motorsport on a patriotic level because the teams themselves have a history of not doing very well, and I'm still scarred from saying a decade ago that Jaguar's F1 team would be something we'd all be proud of. The cars looked fantastic in British Racing Green and for one glorious season we even had an entirely British crew at the helm, with both Eddie Irvine and Johnny Herbert on board. But did it win any championships? Erm, no.

Fast forward a decade and Lewis and Jenson are still out there showing the world what a talented British sportsman can do if we strap them into the seat of something with at least 700bhp, but what about our touring car stars, our rally drivers and even the hardcore heroes lining themselves up for this year's Le Mans 24 Hours, taking place this weekend?

I know that to catch their exploits you often have to trawl through the most obscure satellite channels but I promise you it's worth it; some of the action's better than anything you'll catch Capello's crusaders up to over the next month.