Tony Blair heads taskforce to ‘clean up cricket’

Tony Blair, whose autobiography ‘A Journey’ is published today, has been appointed head of a taskforce to clean up the image of ‘no balls’ cricket, ‘bloodgate’ rugby, boxing, horse-racing and ‘but Ref, I’ve really hurt my knee’ football.

Ban Ki Moon, UN Secretary General and international sports fan, has declared “enough is enough” and appointed Tony Blair as ‘World Sports Ambassador’ to give global competitive events “a fresh start”.

“We will achieve this through rebranding,” said Moon today, “Tony is perfect for the job. He is the Rebrandinator. He rebranded the word ‘brand’ and made it ‘brand new’. He is Marlon Brand-O. He eats brandwiches.”

Early reports suggest that Taskforce: Sport 2.0 is already near to selecting a new word for ‘sport’, into which a carefully orchestrated PR campaign will project core sporting values like cleanliness, youth, money, muscles and the pathetic absurdity of the loser.

Blair answered questions at a rushed press conference in London today as he sped between book signing events, admitting that top of the list for the renaming of ‘sport’ was the word ‘nuance’.

“‘Lets go play some ‘nuance’, the children of the future will say” imagined the former PM, “or ‘I can’t wait to sit down with a jolly old Tartan’s Export and watch some ‘nuance’ on the telly.” It wasn’t long, however, before questions turned to his book.

“My acceptance of this prestigious international position has nothing to do with the promotion of my autobiography which is out today and available at all good bookshops,” he insisted, “or about the fact that I am well known to be an active games player, whereas Gordon Brown likes lazing about, being grumpy, playing solitaire and drinking Irn Bru. It’s not about me at all, it’s about A Journey. The journey of sport – sorry – ‘nuance’.”

“Tony equals clean equals God,” explained an aide as Blair left the stage to do a reading at Waterstones Piccadilly, “sport equals dirty rotten cheats, therefore Tony plus sport plus God plus Papal visit plus Olympics minus Gordon Brown times by ‘a new vision’ equals rebirth divided by historical legacy, brackets (Iraq).”

Read our exclusive extract of Tony Blair’s new book BEFORE it was edited – ‘A Journey: God’s Only Soldier’ – tomorrow only at thepoke.co.uk