The tenor’s new advisory role is designed to restore credibility to the soccer association.

Usually when Limelight mentions sport and classical music in the same article it’s to bemoan the cultural gap and funding imbalance between the two fields in Australia.

But in a move that has perplexed football fans and opera lovers alike, the Spanish tenor/baritone Plácido Domingo has been appointed to a new solutions committee within the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA).

Domingo, 70, has been invited to join former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger and retired Dutch soccer player Johan Cruyff in a “council of wisdom” charged with rooting out corruption in the organisation.

“These gentlemen are more or less advisers, they are not experts”, explained FIFA president Sepp Blatter. “And what they should be also is the kind of council of wisdom which my executive committee would not like because they think they are the council of wisdom.

“I have contacted the Spanish singer… He is happy, he is proud”, Blatter said of Domingo’s proposed position.

A national icon in Spain and Mexico, the celebrated opera legend claims to have attended every FIFA World Cup final since 1982 and is a supporter of the Spanish team La Roja,...