TV View: Hitler, Mussolini and Franco always, but always, had solutions. Catastrophic to many, the trio, apart from having an intense and lifelong interest in straight-arm salutes, or, in Hitler's case, world domination, also nurtured an unhealthy interest in sport and how it could usefully promote their tactical game. These three knew how to make a team buzz.

Single-minded, autocratic and creatively amoral, all three were hell bent on using sport, mostly football, to promote a positive image and trumpet a fascist ideology to the rest of the world, or, the rest of the football-playing world.

RTÉ 2's Fascism and Football on Saturday evening cast a jaundiced eye over the emergence of the beautiful game as a televised, global product and tracked the three amigos' successful efforts in defacing it.

Mussolini successfully corrupted referees and rigged the 1934 World Cup so that home team Italy would win the competition. Hitler intimidated players and then had his spooks murder the best footballer of his era, an Austrian, Matthias Sindelar, who refused to respect the Nazi wish for him to play for a greater German team after Hitler had annexed his country.

Franco manipulated Real Madrid into a team that stirred passions and divided supporters, creating a deep enmity that matches anything Celtic and Rangers can muster.

Gary Lineker, who spent time with Barcelona in the 1980s, remarked, "there was an intense rivalry (between Barcelona, who resisted Franco, and Real Madrid). You could describe

it as hatred."

The ideological battlefields for all three were football stadiums and international competitions and for the 1934 World Cup, Mussolini took full control. He even specially commissioned a trophy to be presented to the winners, presumably Italy, which was bigger than the Jules Rimet Fifa World Cup.

Il Duce then dictated what referees officiated at which games before turning up the heat for the semi-final clash between Austria and Italy. He chose a Swedish referee for this match, whom he lavishly wined and dined on the night before the game, no doubt clarifying arcane regulations. An Austrian player of the time described what they were asked to play against.

"At one point a pass was sent out to the wing. The referee was in between and instead of moving, he actually headed the ball back to the Italians," noted the former international with a bewildered chuckle.

Difficult as it is to sometimes differentiate between the teams, old footage clearly showed an Italian striker running in to the Austrian goalkeeper, who had just gathered the ball, and landing a carefree punch to the face.

Italy won and the Swede was rewarded with the final between Italy and Czechoslovakia. With the referee turning a blind eye to the studs-up Italian approach, the home team duly won 2-1.

In the 1938 World Cup Italy cast aside their blue colours and turned out in the black shirts of the Fascist Party, while that same year England travelled to Germany for a friendly match played in front of 115,000 spectators.

Hitler, unfussy about actually watching sport, did not attend but still the entire English team, under advice from the British foreign office, offered the Nazi salute endorsing Hitler's regime - a stunningly powerful image still on old black and white film. Time has not diminished just how effective a propaganda tool Hitler had created and exploited.

As much as the Olympic games - Hitler tried to manipulate the 1936 edition in Berlin; the 1972 Munich Games were marred by Palestinian extremists; and Moscow and Washington had their tit-for-tat boycotts in 1980 and 1984 - football has regularly been shaped by those in power to promote more than the skill and passion of the game.

On Saturday, Chelsea, within touching distance of their first title in 50 years, may have been promoting Russian sophistication, certainly not west London's, while yesterday Manchester United played Newcastle to try and ensure an automatic qualification for Europe in next year's Champions League and a boost for their fat share price. There is always something else.

Alfredo di Stefano recognised this in a recent interview played on the Fascism and Football programme. In the context of Franco having firstly organised a bureaucratic maze to stall di Stefano's transfer, before whisking him into his fascist Real Madrid from right under the noses of Barcelona, with whom he had already played three friendly matches, the former striker observed wryly.

"We opened doors without anyone knowing."