As expected Sepp Blatter got his proposal through to end the continental rotation policy for World Cup hosting. The FA and several bandwagon jumping politicians leapt to advocate the English candidacy for the 2018 tournament. Needless to say England were immediately installed as favourites by the bookies bolstered by the apparent support of such luminaries as Michel Platini and Franz Beckenbauer. Like most English supporters, of course, we are gagging to see a major football tournament on these shores again.
This morning's papers have given estimates as to the cost of a winning bid to be anything between £12-£15M which, if true, would seem to be good value given that the five votes the England 2006 bid secured, cost £10.75M. But, hang on, this is an estimate from English sporting administrators and a British government. The 2012 Olympics original total cost was estimated at £2.5bn and, despite a concerted PR offensive to obscure costs, is widely believed to be currently somewhere between £8bn and £12bn. So, a miscalculation of a factor of between three and five times. Based on that, we should expect that the real 2018 World Cup bid will cost in the order of £40M-£50M.
Frankly, RTG can't give a toss what it costs (within reason), so long as England wins it. However, RTG does not have a lot of confidence in the FA to deliver. Take the 2006 bid where the voting took place in 2000. By all accounts, England had agreed previously with Germany that they would do a quid pro quo deal whereby Germany's support for England's Euro 96 bid would be reciprocated by England's support for Germany's 2006 World Cup bid. Although, Bert Millichip, who was the England negotiator for this arrangement, apparently slept through this part of the meeting. Whatever happened, in hindsight, England were never going to win the 2006 bid as shown by their first round voting elimination after a paltry five votes (out of 24 cast). This despite several large financial inducements made to various national football associations in order to procure their votes.
The only conclusion RTG can find for this ludicrous decision to make the bid was for a load of suits at the FA to go on one big jolly around the globe at what is ultimately the supporters' expense. Indeed, if reports are to be believed, ex-players who fronted the bid were making more money than they ever did as full-time professionals (£400K split between Sirs Charlton and Hurst). Little wonder that there is already an orchestrated media campaign by certain parties to ensure their names are in the hat for the next round. Hic! Shhhorry.
Some people might say that the 2006 bid provided a good 'dry run' for future bids. In this case, this was clearly not so. The perception amongst voting associations was that England had 'done the dirty' on Germany and that their programme of financial incentives was underhand. This included funding Peter Withe as manager of the Thailand national team, a friendly against Saudi Arabia, Manchester United's participation in the farcical FIFA 'World Club Championship' amongst others. The bottom line is that, if anything, this actually damaged England's reputation in world football. Imagine the damage and embarasment that would have been caused by a half-finished Wembley Stadium!
Frankly, that £10.75M could have been spent a lot more wisely on the constructive development of English football. Why, for instance, with the total dearth of English management talent in the country, is there no official FA-backed management academy? We appear to be wedded in this country to the belief that only top level ex-players can successfully manage a team. One wonders what would have happened to an English Mourinho or Wenger. But that's the subject of yet another debate.
For several years, England has been the richest footballing nation in the world. We should be a superpower in football given the financial backing and a population of 50 million people. But as already stated in previous RTG posts, we have not come close to winning anything apart from 1990. It is clear the archaic FA is neither structured nor staffed to be able to take advantage of England football's financial muscle.
Surely this bid represents the ideal opportunity to restructure the whole game within England to, not only successfully win the bid, but also win the World Cup!
Reclaim the Game - The Week's Events
- Various reserve teams slogged out the fourth round of the Carling Cup over the last two days. Unusually, the fifth round, ie the quarter finals, feature Premeirship only teams and, indeed, three of the big four. RTG leaves you to draw your own conclusions as to the significance of this because we're not really sure.
- Congratulations go out to Petr Cech for winning his libel case against Kelvin MacKenzie and the Sun. Mr MacKenzie claimed in his Sun column that the Cech family dog had attacked his own dog whilst out on a walk. Once again it has been shown that the Sun and Mr MacKenzie write lies and manipulate the truth. The trouble is they have an enormous impact on football. It will be hard to get things changed for football in this country with the vested interests of News International and its sister company BSkyB. Especially grateful to Cech for being brave enough to take on the Sun and a fine gesture to donate his 'substantial' damages to charity.
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