As some people know, I am chairman of the Special Olympics in Great Britain which had extra publicity recently when the British games were held in Leicester.

Nearly 30,000 people attended the opening ceremony at the Walkers Stadium.

Great Britain is only part of the world organisation and recently there has been a new initiative called the ‘Special Olympics global football programme’.

Because football is the biggest participation sport it has been picked to bring more awareness to the fact that there are millions of people around the world with learning disabilities .

This is a chance to let everyone know there is an opportunity for them to be able to take part in sport.

When the Special Olympics take place every four years, there are over 8,000 athletes from over 160 countries.

But this new programme will eventually aim to hold a World Cup for Special Olympic footbalers.

I have been appointed to the committee which is represented by people from all around the world.

Other names such as Ossie Ardiles and Gerard Houllier are well known in these parts, but probably the biggest South American name at present, Kaka, has already signed up to be an ambassador.

Excellent The aim initially is to get ten clubs or organisations around the world signed up and last weekend I was fortunate enough to visit the first two – Tottenham and Inter Milan.

Last Saturday I was at White Hart lane to see Tottenham lose to Man United in an excellent game.

Beforehand we were entertained in one of the hospitality suites.

Ossie Ardiles and myself were joined by David Ginola who, with his hair cut much shorter, looks if anything even fitter now than when he played.

He certainly caught the attention of the ladies in the room who queued for his autograph.

It struck me that if Eric Cantona can work to become a film star then Ginola just needs to turn up and say nothing on the screen.

Also, we were visited by Alan Mullery and I bumped into other Spurs legends such as Martin Peters and Pat Jennings.

Like most of the big clubs, Spurs use their ex-star players to attract people into their hospitality suites. People pay good money for a nice meal before the game but, as the queues for autographs showed, also the ability to meet and talk to their heroes.

At half time Ossie Ardiles and I were interviewed on the pitchside to explain to the crowd what the global initiative was all about and to congratulate Spurs on becoming the first British club to sign up for the programme.

Spurs also dedicated two pages of their excellent programme to spread the news.

After the game we were entertained in the boardroom where we were able to share a drink with a happy Bobby Charlton who is a director of Man United.

It was good to see David Pleat, the ex-Spurs manager, still welcome there. He had been working on the radio.

Very early Sunday morning the British contingent flew to Milan where in the afternoon we watched Inter Milan play Parma.

It was interesting for me to compare the two games played so close to each other.

Both had fantastic individual players on show but the British game to me had the edge.

The Italians insisted on having that extra pass which, more often than not, led to inactivity in the goal area, Jose Mourinho’s team eventually won 2-0 but left it very late to break down the Parma defence.

Another interesting fact to me was of the 36 players and substitutes on the teamsheet on Sunday there wasn’t one British name.

On the Monday we held our first committee meeting with representatives from as far away as Panama, Kuala Lumpur and Washington DC.

A mini World Cup has already been held in South America and the report was it was a huge success.

It was this which persuaded Kaka to get involved as he was swamped apparently by the Brazilian children when he turned up to one of their games.

Anyone who has had this experience, particularly with Downs Syndrome children, finds it very hard not to help out.

The initiative is something I am hoping will get bigger and bigger.

Already the national team of the Republic of Ireland have signed up as well and it is the aim of the committee to try and persuade the other national teams who qualify for the South Africa World Cup to join in as well. So I suppose it’s a question of watch this space.