As for encouragement, Camelot, or whoever runs the Lottery in the future, could change their approach from marketing the Lottery as a means of getting rich quick and spend the money on making people aware of the new opportunities the Lottery is creating for them.This policy has been adopted by lotteries in other countries to great effect. Since New York began to make more of the good work being done by the proceeds, turnover has almost doubled. Only 43 per cent of the money raised since November 1994 has been paid out. Over pounds 3.6bn is being sat on by the Treasury and, of this, pounds 1.5bn hasn’t even been allocated.This would be more than enough to set up high-quality, readily accessible schemes to make a wide variety of sports available to people in all parts of the country. Hence, fewer than half of us take enough exercise and, ironically, the percentage has fallen during the life of the Lottery. The attitude of schools and schoolchildren provides little hope of improvement. French kids spend twice as much time playing sports as their British counterparts, who are ranked 13th in Europe in terms of time devoted to sport.The Lottery has already earned enough to provide the facilities, the opportunity and the encouragement to make a vast difference to those sorry figures and to enhance the quality of all our lives, but the delays in distributing the proceeds are disturbing.

In France, people saw only the image of a Milan team losing; they didn’t really see me play. I kept saying I was still the same player as before, but I wanted to challenge myself, because in all the challenges of my life I have given everything I was disappointed that they were doubting me. I had nothing to prove to them, just to myself because soccer is my passion as well as my profession and I like to do it well Winning is beautiful. His greatest friend, Didier Deschamps, referred with some awe to Desailly being au sommet de son art, at the height of his powers. Desailly smiles at the compliment.”I was under pressure because of what I had said, but I was 100 per cent sure I would have a great World Cup. He had informed the French press that this would be his finest hour, though no one truly believed how seriously he would take the pledge. Milan were losing too much for his liking and, after five years, his eyes were open to a new challenge.

But the timing of the move suggested a man determined to put his life on hold for the duration of the Mondial. While other players used the tournament as a shop window, Desailly was consumed with the idea of winning. Typically, because he looks at life through a wider lens than most footballers, he signed his contract before the start of the World Cup. Moments before we talked, Chelsea had ended their morning session with a series of five- yard sprints, the players starting from a prone position, either lying on their back or their front, to test reflex and agility. The neatness of movement in Desailly, who weighs 12 and a half stone and stands well over six feet tall, was more ballet dancer than footballer; almost defying the human eye.Desailly has already made a mockery of the critics who accused Chelsea of spending pounds 4.6m on another Italian cast-off.

He changes in the quietest of the dressing-rooms at Chelsea’s training ground, opposite Gustavo Poyet, another studious professional, yet his command and his athleticism are unquestioned. When you see me on the television you may think I’m very sure about myself That is not the right image I am a nice, family man, a good father I’m a simple guy.”Even the players feel the difference In training, Desailly rarely joins in the japes. It is worth detailing the silverware: two successive European Cups, with Marseille in 1993 and Milan in 1994, two Italian championships with Milan, in 1994 and 1996, and a World Cup winner’s medal from France 98. Add in a couple of World Club Championships, a third successive European Cup final, a domestic cup or two and Desailly’s career has already been a handsome fulfilment of his own mantra that “winning is beautiful”.
The French have called Desailly hautain, which in English means haughty But it is not the case. Yes, he has an unnervingly strong gaze and a disconcerting confidence, but it is more the physical presence, the inviolable force field around Desailly which discourages close attention “It’s the way I talk,” he says “It’s not me. For such a high-rise player, Marcel Desailly has kept a very low profile since his arrival in England. Chelsea, who play at Leeds today, have taken time to find their stride this season and the Frenchman has needed to steady himself after the heady excesses of the World Cup, from which he emerged as the spiritual leader of the victorious French side.

He is concerned with more mundane matters now, with settling his wife and three children into the family home in Surrey, with the launch of a new line of clothing, with perfecting his English and adding another league title to his priceless collection of campaign medals. From him praise for the validity of the event does not come much higher.Wigan: Radlinski; Robinson, Connolly, Moore, Bell; Paul, Smith; O’Connor, McCormack, Mestrov, Gilmour, Holgate, Andy Farrell. Substitutes used: Johnson, Houghton, Cawie, Cassidy.Leeds: Harris; Rivett, Blackmore, Godden, Cummins; Powell, Sheridan; Masella, Newton, Fleary, Morley, Anthony Farrell, Glanville. Substitutes used: Mathiou, Holroyd, Hay, St Hilaire.Referee: R Smith (Castleford).. Marc Glanville conceded a penalty for dropping on to Tony Smith in the tackle.