No, I am not talking about Patrice Evra’s applauding of fellow ITV pundit and England footballer Eniola Aluko (nor his muttered “no clapping” moan in a subsequent match).

Nor am I talking about the various people who are upset that women deign to commentate on a football match.

(Incidentally, “Remote Controller” in the new issue of Private Eye needs to take a long hard look at himself)

No. Instead, I want to talk about the coverage itself. As I mentioned previously, this tournament is covered on behalf of FIFA by Host Broadcast Services, who provide the pictures that every broadcaster takes.

Basically, it’s pretty sexist.

Let me explain why. I don’t have the demographic breakdown of ticket buyers for the World Cup, and I don’t doubt that it’s a mixed crowd. However, I would argue that it’s predominantly male. There are definitely females there. How many I couldn’t guess. But I would need strong convincing otherwise to be persuaded that there weren’t more males than females in the crowd.

But you wouldn’t necessarily know that from the TV pictures. The TV cameras, when they show close-ups of people in the crowd, are as likely as not to show a women. Probably quite an attractive woman. Failing that, it’ll be a child. But mostly women. They might be wearing the team shirt, and perhaps have face paint on or be adorned with flags. But they will be a woman.

Essentially there are one or more camera operators during each match whose job seems to be to find the prettiest, most colourfully dressed people in the stadium, and put them on camera for the world to see. It’s utterly blatant.

It gets worse. Danny Baker related on one of his radio shows that when he was in South Africa for the 2010 World Cup he happened to sitting near a women who featured on the coverage. She was a paid model, and, he recalled, she had been alerted in advance when she would be on camera so that she was whooping and cheering when they cut to her.

Is FIFA still populating the crowd with models who’s job it is to look pretty for the cameras? I don’t know. But I do find the coverage objectionable. I might not especially want to see a shirtless beer-bellied supporter in particular, but that might be a more accurate representation of the crowd. This does seem to be a FIFA problem. You don’t tend to see it Premier League coverage, and nor does it seem especially prevalent in UEFA Champions’ League coverage. But who would have thought it? FIFA seems to have retrograde view of the game that they want to spice up.

As it stands, it feels very creepy – a long lens camera scouring the ground for pretty girls to zoom in on. It’s the sort of thing the Daily Mail does on a hot day.

There are also some tell-tale giveaways. If the crowd member is wearing a lanyard of some description, then they’re probably a VIP. Perhaps they have tickets via a sponsor. They almost certainly didn’t go into some national federation’s draw for tickets.

I’m not saying FIFA is the worst. Formula 1 might have got rid of “pit girls,” but too many cycling events still have “podium girls” who have to give winning riders a big kiss. For the Giro d’Italia, they seemingly have to apply a particular kind of lipstick guaranteed to leave marks on a rider’s cheeks.

Even worse is the Indian Premier League. The crowd shots there seem to exclusively be of the wealthy cricket-goers in the executive levels. Lots of glamorous men and women do that usual feigning of wanting to be on screen, while you know they love it. Rarely do cameras head higher up into the stands where the cheaper seats are, unless a six is landing in that section.

Worse still is the fact that they employ cheerleaders. This does not sound like the most edifying experience from comments made in 2015 AMA conducted by one of the dancers.

“I hate the racism. Why is my team made up of 99% white girls? Why do Indians feel it’s ok to dress white girls up in skimpy outfits but they won’t let their fellow Indian women do it? It’s messed up.

“I’ve asked my managers [about why no Indian girls as cheerleaders] and they don’t know. I’ll keep asking around, though, because I’m curious too. They could probably just get good dancers and train them; there’s no shortage of those.”

Sexist and racist? At least the latter is, thus far, missing at the World Cup, and FIFA hasn’t, to my knowledge, suggested adding cheerleaders to the mix.

But let’s stop the leering crowd cameras. Show us regular fans cheering or sobbing (but skip the kids doing that please). And leave the models at home.