Let me guess, another footballer has been ‘pushed over’ on the pitch… 

Put your soapbox away; the footballers are behaving… it’s the Irish dancers who are in trouble. 

Irish dancers?As in fiddles, whistles and complicated lower-leg work? 

That’s it. Irish dancing is big business – particularly in America – and there’s more at stake here than you might think.

So, tell me, how does one cheat at Irish dancing? 

We can tell you aren’t buying the gravity of this situation, but the talk is of mafia levels of corruption. 

Stop it, you’re being dramatic. 

We aren’t.It’s become so heated that there’s talk of an omertà code of silence that prevents people speaking out. One teacher told The Guardian that once you‘ve received a favour in the Irish dance world, then ‘you’re indebted… for life. It’s like The Godfather.’ 

By favours you don’t mean… 

Yes, we do. 

But I’ve seen Riverdance and they definitely had their hands where I could see them. 

We’re not talking dancer-on dancer action – you’ve seen too much Strictly. This scandal is of the teacher-on-judge variety.

Go on… 

Tales of inappropriate behaviour include a text message from a teacher inviting a judge to a hotel room with the missive: ‘I am drunk and so horny.’ Anyway, it’s got bad enough for Ireland’s deputy PM to weigh in, plus a former Irish Court of Appeal judge.You haven’t heard the last of this.

Well, it just goes to show… 

What? 

That even niche sports have their dark recesses. 

Are you talking about anal beads in chess (players) by any chance? 

I was making a loftier point but, as we’re down there, remind me what happened. 

American chess grandmaster Hans Niemann, 파라오카지노 19, has been accused of cheating after beating Norwegian world champion Magnus Carlsen. One theory is that Niemann used vibrating anal beads (operated by his coach) to tell him which moves to make. 

So, for the Queen’s Gambit the coach might… 

Mercifully, we’ve been spared the signalling specifics but the latest development is that the chess world’s governing body, Fide, has started an inquiry that is expected to report back within weeks. 

This isn’t going to help chess’s image as the psychopath’s sport of choice. 

Actually, chess isn’t the only sport alleged to be employing bad vibrations. 

Who else? 

US poker star Robbi Jade Lew is fighting to clear her name after allegations she cheated in a recent $269,000 (around £244,000) game streamed from a Californian casino.Even though Lew had terrible cards, she appeared – say her detractors – to know that her opponent did, too. 

How could she have known? 

Amateur sleuths claimed that Lew’s chair appeared to shudder, while others pointed to a mysterious bulge in her Versace leggings and a red jewel on her finger.Any of these, they claim, might have concealed a vibrating device.

And… 

She invited the Los Angeles Times to accompany her to a jewellery specialist to prove the ring didn’t have secret powers.It didn’t. No word yet on the leggings. 

Did I hear that there had been skulduggery in the angling world, too? 

You did, and we’re afraid to tell you that the story also involves some dubious insertions – although this time the recipient was a walleye fish. 

What happened? 

Two US anglers have been accused of putting lead balls and fish fillets in their catch in an attempt to win the £26,300 prize money in an Ohio tournament.The resulting footage of a judge slicing open the suspect winning fish went viral. 

Please tell me the angling authorities will be meting out a severe punishment for that blatant deception. 

The duo should be thankful they’re not Irish dancers or they could end up sleeping with the fishes…