So why all this brouhaha over England’s bid for the 2018 World Cup finals? We won the 2012 Olympics so we can just go on and win a World Cup, can’t we?
Ah, if only it was as simple as filling out a form outlining all the plus points of a World Cup in England. We would win it hands down. But it isn’t. For reasons too bizarre to contemplate, the members of the executive committee of Fifa — who will make the final decision in December 2010 — don’t appear to deal in hard facts, but need to be wooed so that they will cast their votes like star-crossed lovers and not hard-headed businessmen.
So get wooing, then. What’s the problem?
Well, would you want to be wooed by Lord Triesman, the FA and 2018 bid chairman? Good chap, but not exactly sexy, is he? Jack Warner, the troublesome Fifa vice-president, said recently he wanted to be wooed by David Beckham. Or the Queen, although what she knows about world-class football stadiums could probably be contained on the back of one of her stamps.
So what are you saying?
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That the drip, drip, drip of rumour and innuendo about Triesman’s leadership is proving damaging. The 2018 board — which includes luminaries such as Lord Coe, the chairman of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, and Sir Terry Leahy, the Tesco chief executive — appears hopelessly split and needs a unifying force. And the Government has appeared less than convincing in its support for the bid.
So should the Government do something convincing?
Well, it hasn’t come up with the £5 million the FA wanted to help to fund the bid yet. But consider this: the 2012 Olympic bid was given £10 million of taxpayers’ money up front, never mind the £9 billion or more it will cost to fund the Games. The 2018 World Cup bid team reckons it needs only about £15 million, including the Government’s share. After that, it is all profit if it wins the bid. The tournament would be worth £3.2 billion to the economy, for example, with no costly stadiums to build.
Wow! As an investment it sounds too easy.
Not entirely, because the Government would have to make guarantees to Fifa on matters such as security, which could add up to at least £300 million, but that is still small beer by comparison with an Olympics. Or even bailing out a banker.
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To be fair, £5 million wouldn’t keep a banker in champagne for long, would it?
Not if he is worth his salt and my overdraft. Whether the Government wants value for its money or not, the problem is the disconnect between the warm words of Gordon Brown, when the Prime Minister promised to do all he could to get the World Cup for England, and the production of the cash. Fifa’s executive members would be right to scratch their heads and wonder what on earth is going on.
Hang on, though. The Premier League has got money coming out of its ears. Why can’t it foot the bill?
Yet more disconnect. The FA is a non-profit organisation with its money going into grassroots football. The Premier League serves 20 clubs, all private companies, who hug their £5 notes to their collective chests. And Richard Scudamore, the Premier League chief executive, is no fan of Triesman’s after the FA independent chairman took a swipe at the clubs’ £3 billion-worth of debt. Asking the Premier League for £5 million would be as successful as inviting Gordon Brown to enter The Times’s Spelling Bee.
That’s enough. The Government should ditch Triesman and pay the money so we can get on with it.
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Easily said, difficult to do. The Government has no say in Triesman’s appointment, at the FA or at 2018. The boards of both organisations would have to make that decision, if, indeed, it is even necessary. But then, maybe Triesman needs to take a leaf out of the Jack Warner manual of “How to Win a World Cup Bid” — and start wooing for his footballing life.