What is the most important aim for the governing body of a sport? The success of the England team. What is not at the top of the priorities of the governing body of the sport in question? The success of the England team. That is the only conclusion we can come to after seeing David Beckham reinstalled as England captain.

Is Beckham going to lead England into the World Cup of 2010? I don't think so. Is Beckham going to play a central part in England's qualifying campaign for that competition? It doesn't seem likely. So why did he lead the boys out against Trinidad & Tobago last night?

One of the dismaying things about making the transition from club management to running a national team is how few chances you get. Fabio Capello, the England manager, has only one more match before qualifying starts. How could he waste last night's chance to give his team of choice a decent run-out?

Of course, it is all to do with the Football Association's demented belief that playing in Trinidad will win vital support for England's hopes of staging the World Cup of 2018. That side of things has already gone wrong. But all the Beckham business continues, eating into the few opportunities for preparation that Capello has.

Beckham's 100 caps, Beckham's standing ovations, Beckham's press conferences and now Beckham as captain. It is now clearly established that Beckham's popularity is more important than his playing ability. Unfortunately, you don't win football matches by PR. But who cares about winning football matches?

Business, it is clear, is far more important. But, alas, this is a self-defeating standpoint. The truth of the matter is that victory creates the best kind of sporting business. If the FA poured its best efforts behind the search for victory, good business would follow.

But no, football and the FA have long since gone all corporate and taken on corporate values. What matters is business. Mere sport has been relegated to second place. Or maybe third. Clearly, the success of the England team comes a poor second to schmoozing and cheap PR stunts.

Meanwhile, Capello has run out of experimentation time. Yes, I know, and he has hardly started. The match after next is one that actually matters. And are England ready? Do we know what the best team is? Do we know who the captain is? No - but we do know that England tried their best to do good PR in Port of Spain. So that's all right, then.

And don't let the Ashes get in the way of business

What is the most important aim for the governing body of a sport? The success of the England team. What is not at the top of the priorities of the governing body of the sport in question? The success of the England team. That is the only conclusion we can come to after witnessing the victory of the England cricket team over New Zealand at Old Trafford.

Old Trafford is a good ground for England. Lord, none of us will forget that day there in 2005. I remember being bewildered by the sight of hundreds of people carrying picnics and wearing England hats - walking away from the venue on the last day of that epic match against Australia.

The ground was already full and this retreating army had been locked out. Those who got in saw England dominate and come within one wicket of securing victory in the greatest of cricketing summers. England won there last week in a remarkable turnaround, inspired by Monty Panesar and finished by Andrew Strauss. It is the ground where England have their best chance of beating Australia next summer, particularly because Australia lack a match-winning spinner and England don't.

So which Test will be held at Old Trafford in the Ashes summer of 2009. Er, none. Because of some inflection of business and politics, Old Trafford has been knocked off the rota and Cardiff gets in instead. You'd have thought that the venues would be selected on the basis of England's best chances. But no, the priority is business - even though the best boost for business would be an England win. Play up, lads! Remember you're representing a significant corporation!

*****

Andy Murray can win Wimbledon this year. He told us so himself, and you can't argue with that. He does say Roger Federer is favourite, but then Murray has a 2-1 winning record against the world No1. “I just think there's more chance that someone like [Rafael] Nadal or [Novak] Djokovic - and I'd like to put myself in that bracket - can win Wimbledon,” he said. Go on, then. Make my summer.

Through the highs and lows Dallaglio finally won us over

There is a strange thing that happens in sport. It doesn't really happen in other walks of life. The process begins with a person who is seriously awful. And the years pass and they stay as awful as ever. But somehow their awfulness becomes essential and almost without our knowing it turns into something that we respect, admire, even love.

It happened with John McEnroe, it happened with Ron Atkinson. It is in the process of happening with Sir Alex Ferguson and Rio Ferdinand. And with Lawrence Dallaglio, the process is complete. Few people blew it as comprehensively as he did. He was the England rugby union captain caught boasting about his past as a drug dealer in a tabloid sting. He then explained that it was all nonsense. It just happened that he was (a) drunk and (b) lying. So that's all right, then.

And all the time he has continued as an unreconstructed rugby hooligan, playing with a buccaneering, raw-boned ferocity, with vestiges of the ancient amateur ethos still clinging to him. He retired at the weekend in victory with London Wasps in the Guinness Premiership grand final and did so with well-deserved cheers ringing in his ears. He seems utterly unchanged, but there is a time when consistency becomes a kind of pluck.

Welcome a tournament to watch with joy, not anxiety

We embark on an intriguing sporting experiment this weekend. As football's European Championship finals begin in Austria and Switzerland, so we can try to work out if we really like football. What we will be served up is football without partisanship and for some the very notion is like a Bloody Mary without the Tabasco, and without the bloody vodka as well.

One of the problems with the World Cup is that there are so many matches that, because you can't watch them all, you just watch England. Another is that England's progress overshadows everything and we miss out on things such as brilliant teams and outstanding individuals.

But this compact and England-less tournament brings us an opportunity to examine the sport and to see its beauties and its flaws with a clear eye. Without England we may even have the chance for one of the most intoxicating experiences in sport: to identify a serious talent at the beginning and to watch its dramatic development.

England blew their chance to be there, but we can take a profit from this. We can look, for a change, at football as a sport, one full of joys rather than anxieties. This is a football tournament to watch from the right side of the sofa.