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By Andrew Warshaw at Wembley
February 23 – David Dein’s (pictured) first role as international president of England’s 2018 World Cup bid will be a face-to-face meeting with Jack Warner, the veteran FIFA powerbroker who famously denounced the bid as too lightweight in October last year.
The former Arsenal vice-chairman will accompany bid CEO Andy Anson to the upcoming Caribbean football congress where a formal presentation will be made to Warner and other delegates before the English campaign moves on to Guatamala.
Despite an apparent fallout with Warner, the FIFA vice-president whose CONCACAF confederation possesses three important votes for 2018 and 2022 candidates, Anson believes differences have since been patched up.
“Jack is one of the most influential people within the FIFA executive committee. He’s a very important guy and we will continue to try and convince him of our case.”
With the campaign to stage the 2018 tournament turning into a four-horse race between the four European contenders, there is a growing belief that initial favourites Spain and Portugal are losing ground because of a lack of togetherness and the virtual absence of a robust public relations initiative.
Anson wouldn’t comment on that but sources have told Insideworldfootball that Spain are making a strong, if risky, connection between their performances on the pitch in South Africa next summer and their chances of staging the World Cup eight years later.
Meanwhile Anson insists the negative publicity generated by the off-the-field antics of England players John Terry and Ashley Cole will not adversely affect the bid process.
“As you go round the world, people look with some amusement at what are private matters,” said Anson.
“People follow what happens in England but that’s because they are passionate about our football.”
England’s vast, 20-chapter bid book will be completed by the end of March in order to be ready in time to be presented to FIFA in mid-May. Traditionally, bids live or die by their technical quality and Anson believes it will have far more impact than any unrelated misdemeanours by individual footballers.
“The private lives of footballers are not what is going to win or lose us the bid. We will be judged on the quality of our technical bid. When I talk to FIFA executive committee members, they are more interested what we can offer. In that respect, we have an unbelievable case. We can get 100 percent of fans using public transport and have way more than enough hotel rooms.”
Speaking at the unveiling of England 2018’s latest partners – the supermarket chain Morrisons – Anson said he expects the FIFA Congress in South Africa in June, attended by all FIFA federations just before the World Cup, to be a crucial vote-garnering exercise.
“Clearly with all the exco members in one country at the same time, it’s a significant lobbying opportunity. The end of the World Cup is when we’ll see the final gun being fired for the final straight. The biggest challenge is staying ahead of the competition. Some are spending a lot of money in terms of marketing and promotion, others are just lobbying. We are somewhere in between. ”