The World Cup is gone. English football now needs some clear thinking about its future relations with the international game.
The disappointment of the Zurich vote that saw the 2018 World Cup awarded instead to Russia brought with it talk of breaking away from FIFA.
Such thoughts, moreover, were not confined to those whom one might easily write off as “extremists” in this context.
So FIFA is corrupt, full of Executive members who look you in the eye and lie, and England is taking its ball home.
Should such a statement be put to the British public today, I am quite certain it would receive unanimous support. Even before the Zurich debacle, FIFA, and in particular President Sepp Blatter, would have struggled to win a popularity contest in the mother land of football. But I have rarely seen a country and its media so united in its condemnation of the organisation.
The uninformed, largely bigoted vitriol being aimed at Qatar after they were awarded the World Cup 2022 would it appear, be for no other reason than they had a successful bid.
I should declare in advance that I am a “fan” of many of the Gulf nations having worked in and visited a number of them, including Qatar.
Legacy is important to FIFA, something we have largely ignored in England when reacting to the allocation of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
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I said last month that England had a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the 2018 World Cup finals, but it gives me no satisfaction to have been proved right.
I thought Russia winning the 2018 finals was a fait accompli. And Qatar getting the 2022 finals will be devastating for the US domestic game. FIFA have clearly taken a decision to take their finals further afield.
England had the best presentation –
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In one corner of the room in one of Switzerland’s plushest hotels, the unmistakable figure of Chuck Blazer, FIFA’s Tweeting Executive Committee member, holds court.
On the other side of a large Christmas tree, a Boys’ Own triumvirate of David Beckham, Gary Lineker and Fabio Capello cluster around a small coffee table.
Nearby, English Premier League boss Richard Scudamore has been doing his bit, engaging the Asian Football Confederation chairman and Qatari ExCo member Mohamed Bin Hammam in earnest conversation for quite some time.
The destination of the 2018 World Cup finals is about to be revealed in Zurich, and for my money that destination will be Spain-Portugal.
But however it turns out, there is no doubt in my mind where the 2022 finals are heading – the United States.
The US withdrew their bid for the 2018 World Cup because, according to the chairman of their bid committee, Sunil Gulati, they had no chance of winning it and they want to concentrate on bidding for the World Cup after that.
The BBC’s Panorama programme told us nothing new about the 2018-22 World Cup campaign.
But it underlined the need for a changing of the guard in FIFA’s upper echelons.
World football’s governing body plainly has no intention of further investigating the nature of links between football officials and the ISMM/ISL sports marketing organisation which collapsed nearly a decade ago.
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Once the white smoke from FIFA’s conclave of cardinals has dissipated into the clear alpine air on Thursday (December 2), the way will be clear for an almighty inquest into the way English football is run.
The disappointing nature of the national team’s 2010 World Cup campaign in South Africa has ensured this inquest will happen whether or not England’s bid to stage world football’s flagship tournament in 2018 succeeds.
But,
Should England not win the 2018 World Cup, and that must be considered a possibility, then I suggest the starting point for the post-mortem should be a thin orange and blue FIFA booklet called the Committees Directory 2110. This lists the people who sit on the various FIFA committees.
These committees are the powerhouse of the organisation. They range from World Cup organisation, to referee administration, the technical development of the game, player status,
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As we approach the final week of the contest to decide where the 2018 and 2022 World Cups will be played, in just the last day or so it has emerged that:
● British Prime Minister David Cameron is to spend the best part of three days in Zurich, lobbying for the England 2018 bid. This after inviting Jack Warner, one of the most influential FIFA Executive Committee members, to lunch.
● Russia’s Government are making final plans for a visit to the Swiss city by Vladimir Putin,
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So now we know. The conclave that will assemble next month in Zurich to decide where the 2018 and 2022 World Cups will be played will be at most 22 strong.
Though some might think this appropriate – it is after all the same as the number of players who take to the field for a game of football – the suspensions of Nigeria’s Amos Adamu and Tahiti’s Reynald Temarii will clearly reinforces the reputation for sleaze with which FIFA has long been saddled just as the attention of the world is once again about to descend upon it.
The FA have just written to FIFA to try and repair the damage caused by the Sunday Times and forthcoming BBC Panorama investigations into World Cup bidding. I’m sorry to say that I don’t think the letter will make an iota of difference, although I hope I’m wrong, because I would dearly love to see the World Cup come back to England.
But FIFA is desperate not to make a mistake in awarding the 2018 World Cup,
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Sir Alex Ferguson’s famous comment “football, bloody hell” made after Manchester United did the treble in 1999, could well apply to the World Cup bids. Had a script-writer presented this scenario, it would have been rejected out of hand.
The script has as a key player a man who scored the winning goal against England nearly 30 years ago, and has seen the English bid team effectively apologising for the UK media.
The key question is: can David Cameron do what Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjær did for Manchester United in Barcelona and conjure up an England victory?
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Liverpool fans should not delude themselves into believing that now the Gillett-Hicks regime is finally over, and peace reigns at Anfield, that it will bring success on the field of play.
Yes, Roy Hodgson’s team is rediscovering the art of winning again, but the simple equation – a happy set up equals playing success – is a myth.
For a start, despite all the players’ talk of how their heads are “turned in”
England hasn’t got a snowball’s chance in hell of getting the 2018 World Cup finals when the vote is revealed in Zurich next month.
I make this assessment for two reasons.
Firstly, the negative press that has surrounded the English bid, which has been staggering and continues to be staggering.