Salman, keep off soccer8217;

The London-based magazine, considered the Bible of the international football community, has blown the whistle on the renowned author8217;s recent 8220;expert8221; comments on soccer in the New Yorker.

Titled Keep Away From Soccer, Salman,8217; the article finds prime space in the latest issue of World Soccer.

The New Yorker had commissioned Rushdie to tell its readers about the joy of being a Tottenham Hotspurs fan. But embarrassment ensued.

8220;I always have been wholly in Rushdie8217;s corner over the fatwa, deplore the implicit barbarism, and do not begrudge a penny of the sums spent on protecting him,8221; writes the magazine8217;s world-renowned columnist Brian Glanville.

8220;But to call Tottenham8217;s latter-day giant,ex-player and manager Bill Nicholson a Scotsman, when he came from Scarborough in England!8221;

8220;To say that Matt Busby died in the 1958 Munich air crash when he, though terribly injured, pulled through to manage again? Oh Salman, Salman!,8221; Glanville writes on.

Listing a few more instances of ignorance, the columnist wonders what had happened to the famously nit-picking New Yorker fact checkers, notorious for pestering contributors with a 3000 minor queries.

8220;May heaven protect us from the literary intelligentsia, who are now battering on to the game,8221; prays Glanville.