Six months after facing heavy criticism for England’s pitiful showing at the World Cup, the Football Association could now almost be a subject for pity from the general public following Thursday’s humiliating dismissal of the nation’s bid to host the 2018 tournament. In late June, following the 4-1 evisceration against Germany, the FA was blamed for everything from its choice of team hotel in South Africa to its decision to give Fabio Capello a new contract prior to the tournament, thus leaving England with a coach whose position seemed to be untenable but whom it would be too expensive to sack. This week’s vote at Fifa’s Zurich bolthole, however, saw England’s undeniably impressive pitch to host the World Cup in eight years’ time inexplicably beaten into last place by the victorious Russian bid and the joint entries of Spain/Portugal and Holland/Belgium.
A campaign that cost £18m was rewarded with just two votes from Fifa’s executive committee and one of those came from the English representative, Geoff Thompson. The other man to put a cross against England’s name was Issa Hayatou, one of the men implicated in the Panorama investigation into alleged corruption within football’s world governing body. Many people had been blaming the English press for sabotaging the nation’s bid in the run-up to the vote but Hayatou is believed to have honoured his support for England in return for their backing for his failed attempt to succeed Sepp Blatter as Fifa president in 2002. The bid team thought that they could count upon a further six backers at least. The support was not forthcoming and Andy Anson, the England 2018 chief executive, was in no doubt as to the duplicity exhibited by certain ExCo members. “I’m not going to beat around the bush,” he said, “individual members promised to vote for us and didn’t, clearly.”
Saturday’s Guardian named five of the alleged turncoats. The men in question – Dr Chung Mong-joon, Jacques Anouma, Marios Lefkaritis, Senes Erzik and Jack Warner – demonstrate the breadth of England’s betrayal, given that those members carried votes from within the European, African and Asian confederations. Prince William, David Cameron and David Beckham all lobbied on behalf of the bid but even their presence in Zurich was not enough to garner support that extended beyond the buffet table and into the boardroom.
Hey William. Good stuff.
Picking up on your arrogance point – it’s a very good, and often overlooked, element of this whole state of affairs. As a nation, we’re clearly not regarded as highly as we believe we we are/should be.
For all the talk about turning our back on Fifa – what good will it do? It will be little more than a symbolic move. I suspect that our indignance at the decision will be being viewed as sour grapes by other nations.
The Spanish won’t be pulling out any time soon, given that they are the current holders. Brazil are hosting the next one, so they’re happy as Larry. Argentina/Uruguay will have the 2030 one in the bag to celebrate their centenary…
The sad fact is that for all the talk about getting Fifa to clean its act up, I suspect there isn’t actually that much of an appetite to do so outside of these shores…