Mazher Mahmood may well be a scummy scandal reporter, but his sting against England’s manager for the upcoming World Cup is really a hoax to behold. The Guardian reveals that thanks to an elaborate, £100,000 setup funded by The News of the World, England’s manager Sven-Goran Eriksson is now little more than a lame duck coach:

Eriksson was lured to Dubai’s seven-star Burj al-Arab hotel last week for talks about a consultancy for a sports project in the city. The News of the World is believed to have set up the sting six months ago and spent more than £100,000 on it.

The following day, aboard a luxury yacht in Dubai’s marina, the paper claims Eriksson said he would like a three-year deal similar to Jose Mourinho’s £5m-a-year salary at Chelsea. Eriksson offered to phone Beckham to persuade him to join Villa, saying the team would “sell more shirts in one week than they did for the last 10 years”. He said Beckham was frustrated at Real Madrid: “I know for sure he wants to come back to England … if it’s a London club, he will come tomorrow. And it’s up to me to convince him Birmingham is the right place to be.”

Perhaps the most damaging quotes were about Michael Owen’s transfer to Newcastle from Real Madrid after he failed to strike a deal with Liverpool. Eriksson was quoted as saying: “I talked to Michael Owen and said, ‘You are happy?’ He said, ‘Not really with the club, but economically I never earned that money in my life’. So they paid the salary more than Real Madrid did. He said, ‘they gave me a house, they gave me a car, it’s incredible’. They had to do it because in any other way he wouldn’t have gone there.”

Other observations were less indiscreet, attributing a “temper” to Wayne Rooney and describing Rio Ferdinand as “lazy sometimes”.

Eriksson has never endeared himself to England fans. Sadly, he is now even less popular with his own players. The BBC asks whether Eriksson is a victim or fair game. However, I would think that the question following the Swede’s latest scandal is how are players and fans supposed to go on to the World Cup knowing that the England manager is a lame duck?

Eriksson’s tenure as England manager has been incredibly pedestrian on the pitch and truly embarrassing away from it. Barring a World Cup victory, how can the English FA justify maintaining a manager with such a prolific wandering eye?