He certainly was enough of an inside player to have done it, with a past littered with incidents of Malay chauvinism, pandering to conservative Islam and political ambition that westerners who seek to make him a liberal saint conveniently forget.
Never a paper to scorn the chance of a bit of cheerful chauvinism, the match report continued: "So what was all the fuss about?
Less concretely, there's an aspect of chauvinism that could be genuinely useful in the world of covert operations: the almost literal invisibility that women seem to acquire once they reach middle age.
Despite a promise by Putin last month to deal with issues including housing for Crimean Tatars, Kostinsky said Moscow has yet to take serious steps to rein in "Crimean chauvinism".
The treatment of Palestinian children and youths under Israeli military law alone would justify a symbolic vote to encourage the moderates battling Israelis' now dominant chauvinism.
For Britain and Francee), nuclear bombs are to foreign policy what Olympics are to proper sport: chauvinism bereft of intellectual justification or value for money.
Aditya Thackeray says Shiv Sena's reputation for thuggishness and chauvinism is misplaced, blaming the media for "confusion".
As the academic year began, these episodes were reported as emblematic of student "lad culture", defined in a National Union of Students (NUS) report as a competitive male chauvinism disguising itself as "harmless banter".
Before he became totally enfeebled a few months ago, Mr Yeltsin himself gave warning that the forces of authoritarian chauvinism were growing in Russia.
And one should always beware of appeals to chauvinism and local pride.
During the election campaign, Mr Rajapakse forged an alliance with two parties advocating a much tougher line towards the Tigers: a Buddhist group led by monks, and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which mixes Marxism with Sinhalese chauvinism.
