There are no cats in America

The Mousekewitz family moved to America on the promise of a free land, a land of opportunity, abundance, cheese-a-plenty. A land with no cats. When they arrived, they found the true extent of the deception that led them there. The ordeal of moving one's entire family away from everything that was familiar, to a far and distant land; only to realise that you had made a grave misjudgement, was exacerbated by the tragic disappearance of their young son Fievel.

A harrowing story indeed, one which if you are not familiar with, I suggest you do yourself a favour and locate it. The feature length documentary, one of the most hard-hitting and emotional of all time, is called An American Tail (tail like mice have tails but also like tale like story. Clever.)

But I know what you're thinking. Why the bloody hell am I wittering on about the Mousekwitz family - timeless though their story is?

Well, it just so happens, the evil and corrupt cat rulers in America have relocated a few thousand miles down south.

Recently I brought you the glorious footage of one poor River Plate supporter, going through the anguish of watching his side get relegated for the first time in their illustrious history. I know Old Man Mouskewitz felt bad when he thought Fievel was cat food, but even he never got quite so upset.

So, River got relegated and everyone was stunned. A huge club, how can this have actually happened. Surely we can't have La Primera without River? Imagine a Premier League without the Manchester United juggernaut for everyone to go up against each week - weird, right?

Well, the evil cats running the sport in Argentina seemed to agree, hence the following report (brought to my attention by long time Sub Please reader and centre back harder to pass than Gandalf, Anthony Barretto):

The AFA (Argentinean FA)has also announced it plans to merge the teams from the country's top two divisions into one next year, combining all 20 from the top flight and 16 or 18 from the second tier.

It is likely that the teams will be divided into regional groups, meaning a reprieve for River Plate who were relegated for the first time in their history at the end of the 2010-2011 season.

My word. How convenient that these new measures should be brought in just at the time when it just so happens that one of their mega clubs would be missing. Nothing to do with the dramatic loss of revenue, interest, prestige and - once more to state the importance - revenue that the Primera fear without one of their biggest assets.

I don't know a great deal about the intricacies of the Argie FA (perhaps I should educate myself instead of watching old 80's animated classics) but my underlying feeling upon hearing this news is a mixture of fatigue and dismay.

Why does the sport we love have to be so inherently corrupt? Is it not utterly depressing to watch the continuing scandal engulfing FIFA, revealing layer upon layer of rotten, underhand filth? Why can't these people just share the passion for the sport that so many of us who are not lucky enough to be professionally involved have? I know it's naive, with the money to be made in football these days it is inevitable that corruption will flourish, but it should not be too much to ask that the people at the top try and do things right.

If I was a fan of any Argentinian club right now, I'd be feeling pretty damn low about this whole affair. What if your club won promotion by rights and have now had that taken away? Even Old Barry HeartAttack would probably rather see his side regain their pride by earning the right to take their place back at the top table, and not have it engineered in this way.

It sucks, and I don't like it. But what can you do? Might as well face it...there are cats in America.

Head of the Argentinian FA, Senor Cat R Waul