By Osasu Obayiuwana BBC Sport

Gadaffi was not keen to tackle serious questions

As the son of one of Africa's best-known leaders, it is not surprising that Al-Saadi Gaddafi's three-pronged foray into football continues to attract the headlines.

He is, permit the pun, juggling a lot of balls at the moment - a not-so-successful playing career at Italian Serie A side Perugia, a key role in leading Libya's 2010 World Cup bid and business interests at Juventus - through the Libyan Arab Foreign Investment Company.

When he visited Fifa's Zurich headquarters on 30 September, to submit Libya's World Cup bid, the fanfare heralding his arrival could have been mistaken for a Hollywood film premiere.

Surrounded by a coterie of Libyan officials and European aides, who wove a protective cover around him, Al-Saadi did little to unravel the mystique that surrounds his personality.

I had always wondered how Al-Saadi could reasonably cope with the various responsibilities he had taken on, so when a Libyan official invited me to his press conference - which took place at a nearby hotel later that day - I could hardly turn down the opportunity.

I had been promised that he would give frank and honest answers to any questions I may want to put to him.

But I subsequently realised that any chance of putting him on the spot will be frustrated by the 'rules of engagement' at the conference.

An English aide, who compered the briefing and called him by his official title of 'Engineer Al-Saadi Gaddafi,' said journalists would only be allowed to ask one question and would be entitled to only one answer - follow-up questions were forbidden.

Broken promises

The press conference was conducted mainly in Arabic and snippets of French, with the French answers being loudly translated at the same time as Gaddafi was speaking in Arabic, which made the mix of languages a rather interesting spectacle.

As the conference progressed, Al-Saadi pointed out that the English speaking audience had been left out and demanded that this be resolved.

But the English aide promised, to Al-Saadi's hearing, that I would have the chance to ask my questions and get my replies in English, which he used with little problems when presenting Libya's World Cup bid to Sepp Blatter.

Gadaffi is yet to make his league debut for Perugia

When the floor was finally given to me, I walked within touching distance of Al-Saadi and asked why anyone should take Libya's plan to co-host the 2010 World Cup with Tunisia as a serious proposal - after Fifa had ruled out the possibility.

Gaddafi, who was visibly taken aback with my question, bluntly refused to reply in English, which took things back to square one.

"Why should our plan not be taken seriously?. We have a viable plan which deserves consideration," he said with finality.

Ignoring the rule on follow-up questions, I asked him how he could realistically make a success of a demanding career with Perugia, while he travelled round the world to promote Libya's bid.

Again, I got a rather odd answer and an equally curious response from the audience.

"You know," said Gaddafi, breaking into English, "I am a professional player and trained for two hours before coming to Zurich to present our bid."

For reasons I am yet to fathom, the mainly Arab audience burst into applause as he finished his answer, ending the briefing on a rather confusing note.