COMMERCIALISM and sport are a dangerous mixture. The corruption claims which overshadowed the award of the Olympic Games to Sydney and Salt Lake City tarnished the image of the world's biggest sporting gathering.

And now the award of the 2006 World Cup to Germany has tarnished the image of the world's most popular sporting occasion.

Major events are no longer held for sporting reasons alone. There is money to be made.

With big business now in the frame there will always be the whiff of suspicion about the credibility of the bidding processes.

Sport has surely lost its way when England's World Cup bid ran up a £10m bill over four years just to impress 24 Fifa delegates.

The voting procedure became a farce in which even Germany, the victorious country, can find little to celebrate.

Never again must such crucial decisions be allowed to fall on the shoulders of a single individual.

Means must be found to restore the pre-eminence of sporting interests over commercial interests.

Procedures must be adopted to allow the Olympics and the World Cup to achieve the ambitions of their founding fathers - to bring nations together.

At present the unseemly auction to host these events only serves to create divisions and tensions.

The suggestion to draw up a rotation system, to spread the venues across the globe, is worthy of serious consideration.

That will guarantee the 2010 World Cup going to Africa for the first time, bringing football's premier event to that continent for the very first time.

And it may help ensure that the hosts of Olympics Games are determined by the merits of the bidding cities rather than by the size of their back-handers.