[spoiler]
BRUNO CAZARINE CONSTANTINO. Remember the name as he may become as infamous as Jean-Marc Bosman. Cazarine, you see, is the reason Brazil could be banned from playing in next summer's World Cup finals.
That's right, Brazil, the world's favourite football team, could be kicked out of South Africa 2010.
A tournament without them may be unthinkable but a legal case brought against the Brazilian FA (CBF) by one of the smallest clubs under its jurisdiction is threatening exactly that.
And at the centre of the whole affair is the unlikely figure of Cazarine, 26, who could be about to become public enemy No 1.
Cazarine is an unlikely villain in such a major drama, especially one of the scale which has unfolded in Brazil in the past two months.
He's a journeyman player - a very average midfielder who has bounced around nine clubs in the last six years.
It's his last three, however, which have put FIFA at odds with the CBF and could yet carry the ultimate sanction for the Brazil national team.
The row revolves around the outcome of the Brazilian Serie B - and the final placing of two teams.
Guarani, for whom Cazarine plays, came second and were promoted, while Portuguesa finished fifth, meaning they missed going up by one place.
Portuguesa then filed an official complaint against Guarani to the CBF on the basis that Cazarine has played for three different clubs in the same season.
In doing so, he was in clear violation of the FIFA Players' Status rules - Article 5, Paragraph 3.
Both Guarani and the CBF brushed off the protest as insignificant and cited exceptional circumstances.
The player left Brazil's AC Chapecoense on May 10 this year to sign for South Korea's Gyeongnam FC, where he played until joining Guarani on July 13.
Guarani argued he was exempt because FIFA rules allow a player to have three clubs in a season if one club's championship competition is not on the same calendar as his new club.
The excuse was flimsy at best as the K League ran from March to December, while Brazil's season ran from May to December.
Yet, amazingly, the CBF still accepted this explanation.
Portuguesa appointed the highly-respected legal team to take the case to FIFA.
SunSport has acquired copies of the documents sent on Portuguesa's behalf to FIFA, citing the CBF and Guarani's transgression.
We also have the acknowledgement of the citation by FIFA's legal director Marco Villiger and the deputy head of the Players' Status Committee, Daniel Pose.
A meeting is scheduled for January 5. FIFA will decide how the case should proceed.
Paulo Teixeira, who is leading Portuguesa's case, also has proof that the CBF failed in their responsibility as the association in charge of the clubs to punish Guarani.
In doing so, what should have been a local spat between clubs the size of Grimsby and Rotherham has become an issue which could rock soccer to its very core.
Since the complaint is now very much against the CBF as well as Guarani and has been passed to FIFA, it's the world body which must now act by applying its own law.
And that law states that any member association which fails to punish correctly a club which breaks FIFA rules will have its national team suspended from playing in the next official tournament.
Now the cynical among you (me included) will no doubt argue there's no way Sepp Blatter and Co will allow the greatest show on earth to go on without its biggest star.
Surely they'll find some loophole to ensure Brazil take their place in the Group of Death alongside Portugal, Ivory Coast and North Korea.
Maybe. But with a presidential election at FIFA in which Blatter is hoping to win a fourth term, can anyone be seen to so blatantly flout their own rules?
Make no mistake, Portuguesa mean business and will not go away quietly.
Of course it would be a shame for football fans if Brazil were absent.
Yet one team's loss is normally another's gain, and should FIFA replace Brazil, at least they have a country with a strong claim to be there next summer.
Maybe the luck of the Irish is about to change?[/spoiler]
so will we see another failure to abide by the rules by FIFA?
