Hot on the heels of our piece yesterday on the eBay transfer of footballing Portugeezer Cristiano Ronaldo, we can now report that what started as a mere national disaster quickly transformed itself into a genuine national emergency:

Lester,

Following on from the Ronaldo story, here is another link. The cheating scumbag is currently winning the vote to be crowned the FIFA Best Young Player award. Please can you publicise this and ask all Reg readers to go and vote for Luis Valencia, the second placed player, instead. Ronaldo cannot be allowed to win, it's our duty. Votes can be cast at:

http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/w/bypa/eligible.html

Cheers,

Mike

That was a typical example of the dozens of emails we received on the matter, leading to suspicions that enraged England fans were mounting a frenzied vote-rigging email campaign.

Well, the poll actually closed yesterday, and we can indeed confirm that the young lad from the land astride the Equator stormed to a convincing win over his Portuguese rival, with 331,087 votes, or 34 per cent of the total.

We have no doubt the Portuguese will now lodge a formal complaint with FIFA, demanding extra time on the voting during which English IP addresses are red-carded from the selection process. Watch this space. ®