The real price of Fifa's family business

Football fans in South Africa for the world's biggest sporting event — the World Cup, which starts next week — face hugely increased costs for accommodation. In some cases, hotel prices have risen by 300 per cent.

A critical report titled "Player and Referee: Conflicting Interests and the 2010 World Cup" by the Institute for Security Studies, a respected African think tank, says Fifa, football's controlling body, and a British-based company, Match Event Services, along with a subsidiary, Match Hospitality, are responsible for the price rises.

Match Event Services has booked tens of thousands of rooms — up to 80 per cent, according to estimates — in South Africa's leading hotel chains, and it is now offering them at vastly inflated rates. The report is critical of the Match deal because one of the shareholders of Match Hospitality is a Swiss company, Infront Sports, whose chief executive is Philippe Blatter, a nephew of the Fifa president, Sepp Blatter.