Supershorts: 18 March

Duane Mann, of the Black Legends team, massages the prosthetic leg of teammate Tawera Nikau during half-time in the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal Rugby League Match at Mt Smart Stadium last week. Photo / Getty Images

Sepp's loot

Cynics might think that last week's Number of the Week (Fifa's $5.7 billion income over the last four-year World Cup cycle) suggests an organisation run along the lines of an overly cashed-up Bachanalian orgy. True, it sounds like a lot, but spare a thought for Fifa's managers who have to attend to the running costs necessary for keeping the sport going. Take their wage bill, for instance: Fifa has 387 employees and the average wage there is $229,250. Hard to imagine how they struggle along ...

And there are other costs - over the past four years Fifa's books show they've spent $961 million on "expenses". Keep up the good work.

Their struggle

You can tell a lot about a person by the reading material they leave lying around. That's why SuperShorts always gets out John Pilger books and hides the embarrassing stuff when we have visitors - after all, there's nothing worse than being caught flicking through the Sunday Star-Times.

Over at the World Biathlon Championships in Siberia they'd agree. Things got off to a flying start with a cheery launch party and media reception, with event organisers putting copies of old newspapers from around the globe among the hors d'oeuvres for stylistic effect. Small problem: tucked in there were a couple of Nazi-era German newspapers, including Der Angriff (The Attack) a daily broadsheet set up by Joseph Goebbels to sing the praises of the Third Reich.

(Seriously: how on Earth do you accidentally leave a Nazi newspaper lying around?)

Fore the Dear Leader

British travel agent Dylan Harris has received permission from North Korea to run golfing holiday tours in the home of the Dear Leader.

"I know nothing about golf," he says. "I never thought I would be going over to North Korea to run a golf tournament. It's just bizarre really."

Problem: there's only one course in North Korea. Harris will run the tour as a tournament played on the Pyongyang course in the capital.

If they should bump into him, visitors would do well not to challenge Kim Jong-Il to a match - or at the very least, don't bet money on the result. The Dear Leader has played just one game in his life, going around the 18 holes of Pyongyang back in 1994 in a world-record score of 38 - including five holes in one. At his second go, he's likely to be even better.

Other places to which Harris' company runs tours: Chernobyl and Siberia.

Super run me

Joe d'Amico has been eating the breakfast of champions in preparation for Sunday's Los Angeles Marathon - provided, of course, that your definition of the "breakfast of champions" actually translates as the "breakfast of the morbidly obese".

"I've been eating McDonald's since I was a kid," said d'Amico, who has eaten nothing but McDonald's food for 30 days in training. "In a way I've been practising for this my whole life."

Perhaps wisely, he's sticking to the breakfast and lunch menus. No Big Macs for Joe.

Fulham's bad, you know it

Fulham takes its place alongside other great soccer clubs with statues of key figures outside their ground. Move over Leeds (Billy Bremner), Manchester United (Sir Matt Busby) and Liverpool (Bill Shankly), Fulham chairman Mohamed Al Fayed is putting up a statue to the man who best sums up the club's spirit: King of Pop, Michael Jackson.

"Michael Jackson was truly a legend, a term used too often in this modern world saturated in the hyperbole surrounding celebrity," said Fayed. "I hope that many fans of his will visit the statue at the Cottage from far and wide, and that Fulham fans will appreciate seeing the finest performer in the world, in and amongst them, the finest fans in the world."

Cappie opens up

Cappie Pondexter won't be entering the Nicest American of the Year Competition. A guard in the Women's NBA, she joined the legion of twitterers in the Land of the Gun-Polishers to compare last week's horrific Japanese earthquake with Pearl Harbour.

"What if God was tired of the way they treated their own people in there own country! Idk guys he makes no mistakes," she tweeted. When she says "the way they treat their own people" we assume she means "with unfailing politeness".

Not finished, she later tweeted: "u just never knw! They did pearl harbor so u can't expect anything less."

Torres = loyal

You might mistakenly have thought that Fernando Torres left Liverpool for Chelsea because he wanted A.) a shedload of cash; or B.) the chance to actually win a trophy. You would be mistaken. He made his $110 million move out of loyalty to Liverpool.

"I did not want to go to Manchester City or Manchester United. I could never do that, out of loyalty to Liverpool.

"I did not imagine leaving Liverpool but then the train to Chelsea passed by and I had to catch it, because of the dream I have of winning. I want to win the Premier League, and I felt I had to go."

They said it

"When the opportunity to play for Madrid arrived, I knew I'd have them cut. This haircut is the most appropriate for an institution like Madrid."

Emmanuel Adebayor, who chopped off the dreadlocks he wore at Arsenal and Manchester City in favour of a sensible short back and sides.

"The way the tournament's structured, you're going to have to play like absolute drongos not to get through to the quarter-finals."

Former Aussie captain Allan Border on the rigours of the Cricket World Cup.

"Nathan McCullum I'm not overly worried about."

Border, again.

"It is completely strange, isn't it? It's all f***ed up. Where the hell are all the others? No one is coming out."

Anton Hysen, the first top-flight Swedish soccer player to come out.

"Sport can pave the way to statehood for Palestine."

Palestinian soccer federation president Jibril Rajoub after his side played their first competitive match, losing an Olympic qualifier against Thailand on penalties.

"When I replied that my contract has another year to run ... I received a powerful blow to the liver."

Montenegrin striker Nikola Nikezic claims he was beaten into terminating his contract after falling out of favour with the coach at his Russian Premier League club Kuban Krasnodar.

"They make more money from this than from trafficking in heroin."

World Anti-Doping Agency director general David Howman on the organised crime gangs cashing in on the market for sports drugs.

"Twelve teams is too many. Ten is enough."

Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone on the number of teams.

Good week

Ponting-watchers
The scowling Aussie captain's fielding mix-up with Steve Smith yesterday was understandable. Chucking the ball into the ground in a knicker-twisted hissy fit was not. Dear Cricketing Gods, let this be a sign of impending collapse ...

Bad week

Olympic timekeeping
"We are obviously very disappointed that the clock has suffered this technical issue," said a spokeswoman for Omega after their clock counting down to the London Olympics froze in Trafalgar Square.

The number

251km/h
Iva Karlovic, of Croatia, hits the fastest record serve in tennis history in a Davis Cup match against Germany.