Don't get me started.

FIFA. The most powerful organisation in world football. Richer than some countries. Headquarters that look like a Bond villain's lair. And they cannot, for the life of them, keep a website running when people try to buy tickets.

World Cup ticket sales resumed on Wednesday. Within minutes, the whole thing was on its knees. Technical difficulties. Error messages. Loading screens that spin forever like my old centre half trying to turn. Thousands of fans sat there refreshing their browsers like mugs while FIFA's servers had what can only be described as a complete and total nervous breakdown.

In my day, you queued up. Physical queue. Outside the ground. Rain, wind, didn't matter. You stood there with your thermos and your newspaper and you waited your turn like a civilised human being. Nobody's website crashed because there were no websites. There was a bloke called Dave in a wooden hut with a cash register and a roll of tickets. Dave never crashed. Dave never had technical difficulties. Dave was reliable.

But no. We've moved on. We've got progress. We've got a sleek digital platform run by a multi-billion dollar organisation that apparently can't handle the concept of lots of people wanting to buy something at the same time. Amazon manages it every Black Friday. Ticketmaster does it every time Taylor Swift breathes near a microphone. But FIFA? FIFA falls apart like a wet cardboard box.

That's the problem with modern football. Everything is glossy on the outside and rotten underneath. FIFA will spend hundreds of millions on opening ceremonies and holographic pitch displays and whatever other nonsense they're cooking up for 2026, but the basic act of selling a ticket to a fan? Can't do it. Won't do it. Not interested.

You want to know what really gets me? This isn't the first time. This happens every single World Cup cycle. Every single time. They had the same problems for Qatar. They had the same problems for Russia. At what point does someone in Zurich put down their champagne flute and say, "Lads, maybe we should sort the website out"?

I managed Barnet reserves once in a pre-season friendly against a pub team from Enfield. We sold 340 tickets. From a trestle table. In a car park. Not a single technical difficulty. Zero complaints. Well, one complaint, but that was about the tea. Point is, if I can shift 340 tickets with nothing but a biscuit tin and a biro, FIFA can surely manage a functioning webpage.

And here's the thing that really boils my blood. These tickets aren't cheap. People are spending hundreds, thousands of pounds to go to these matches. Families saving up for years. Proper fans. Not corporate suits. Real people who want to take their kids to a World Cup. And the first experience they get is a screen telling them to try again later. Wonderful. Really rolling out the red carpet there, Gianni.

The tournament is across three countries. Three time zones. Forty-eight teams. A hundred and four matches. And they can't run a ticket website. I dread to think what the actual logistics are going to look like come June. Fans turning up at the wrong stadium. In the wrong country. Getting redirected to a 404 page instead of their seat.

My old chairman once told me the budget for new players was "being processed." Took six months. Nothing ever arrived. That's what FIFA's ticket portal reminds me of. Promises, loading screens, and absolutely nothing at the end of it.

Sort it out, FIFA. Just sort it out.

Or hire Dave. Dave never let anyone down.