Let me tell you why I hope that David Ginola wins the right to run for FIFA President in May.

Why, at absolute bare minimum, via the announcement of his candidacy football can be at one of those game-changing moments after which we will all say: ‘We no longer want to be duped, we no longer want to ‘settle’.’

‘We’ve seen better future and the concept of handing the safekeeping of this mighty sport to a man, or woman, of this credibility is now our baseline demand.’

Let’s put our foot on the ball for a second. Let’s pretend that Sepp Blatter (below) is actually a Swiss functionary in a minor accountancy firm in Zurich.

That the FIFA Presidency is, in fact, not tainted and a parody of itself but a blank canvas onto which you can project your dearest, most fervent wishes.

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I guess that we’d all begin by saying: ‘Make the FIFA President someone with a deep, intimate and loving knowledge of the game – preferably from having played or managed successfully in it’.

I think we’d add that we want honesty, vision, integrity, someone who is multi-lingual, who has a wide cultural experience. Someone who appeals equally to men and women.

Our design elements would include ‘youthful’ vigour, but not immaturity, and we’d fervently try to avoid pomposity, anachronistic behaviour and even the merest whiff of partiality, self-interest or avarice.

The capacity to unite, rather than a natural inclination to divide and rule.

Charisma. What about charisma?

The most charismatic sport ever invented in the history of human existence. Couldn’t we throw in a dash of charisma to this ideal global leader?

This template isn’t unique to David Ginola.

At stages of their lives or careers these adjectives, these qualities, have applied to men like Karl Heinz Rummenigge, Pep Guardiola, Johan Cruyff, Vicente Del Bosque, Trevor Brooking, Jurgen Klinsmann, Arsene Wenger.

But Ginola is the one who has stepped forward and begun a campaign not simply to lead but to unite.

From the first time I interviewed him, in the players’ car-park at White Hart Lane after a midweek win for Spurs, until yesterday when we talked at length about what he aims to give back to the sport which made him successful and famous, Ginola has quite evidently been a man of substance.

On his TeamGinola campaign, David Ginola told me: “I spent so long talking to people who told me ‘we don’t understand FIFA decisions, we don’t trust them any more’ that it convinced me to stand.

“Football is the greatest and the most popular sport on the planet and it needs to be respected. The only way to make that happen is that the biggest decisions, taken by FIFA must be transparent, crystal clear, common-sense, fair, honest, balanced and dignified.

“All my life I was an individual player who put everything he had into performing for the team, for the benefit of everyone around me. That’s the approach I want to bring to FIFA.

“My aim is that people can feel they’ve been given back a voice and a respect for the world game.

“That people can say: ‘Wow, what a massive change. ‘We had THAT before and now we have transparency, common-sense, defendable decisions and policies which can be understood, explained and which are crystal-clear in their philosophy.”

It would be misplaced to market Ginola (47) as perfect, or holier than thou. He’s going to be on a steep learning curve.

Cynicism is too often a default setting and it may be that some think he’ll be too politically naive.

What I would point out is that I saw a very, very similar phenomenon first erupt, and then beautify football, when the youthful, previously untested, forces of nature like Joan Laporta, Ferran Soriano, Marc Ingla, Txiki Begiristain, Frank Rijkaard and then Pep Guardiola took hold of a moribund and failing FC Barcelona and gave us a decade of outstanding excellence.

All based on Johan Cruyff’s football bible.

At Bayern Munich the integration of intelligent, energetic, dedicated, modern-minded men like Franz Beckenbauer, Rummenigge (yes, also the flawed Uli Hoeness) and Matthias Sammer over the years demonstrated that if you mix brilliant business and marketing men with the cream of football’s winners the blend can be powerful. Unstoppable.

Ginola added: “Football has been my life – from dreaming about being a professional when I was nine, to signing my first contract at 19.

“I’ve experienced the ups and downs and the word respect is used a a lot – more as a word than as an action.

“This is a game we earn a living from because people buy season tickets, match tickets, subscriptions to football on television and it’s long overdue that more respect was shown to that, shown to those people who make the sport.

“We can make football and its decisions respected again.

“Football belongs to those who love it. A leader should be rewarded for what he or she does in favour of those people, not in favour of themself.”

I guess most of us probably think of Blatter like this: ‘I don’t believe him’. ‘I don’t believe in him’. ‘I can’t believe we’re stuck with him.’

Now it’s time to believe. Believe in reclaiming football, believe that Ginola deserves the chance to prove that he’s our representative. Not saintly, not necessarily a vastly experienced administrator, not perfect. But a man of substance, integrity and vision.

Someone who, on May 29, I’d love to be able to call Monsieur Le President.

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