Dunny’s Hairdryer

REMEMBER when there were bidding contests to stage major football tournaments?

Remember when England rolled out a royal, Prince William, another royal, David Beckham, and a prime minister, David Cameron – and dished out luxury handbags to FIFA WAGS – in a bid to secure the right to host the 2018 World Cup?

And in response got TWO out of 22 votes, one of them from our executive committee member. Ah, those were the days. Now, it seems the destination of major football tournaments is normally a done deal.

UEFA have announced the UK and Ireland will host Euro 2028 after an uncontested bid, ditto in the case of Turkey and Italy for Euro 2032.

Spain, Portugal and Morocco were unopposed in their desire to host the FIFA World Cup in 2030 – albeit with the ludicrous caveat of the first three matches being staged in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay.

No one would be surprised if Saudi Arabia turns out to be the only bidder for the 2034 edition.

After the World Cups of 2018 and 2022 were controversially given to Russia and Qatar, there was talk of widening the process of awarding major tournaments so that more ‘stakeholders’ would have a vote.

Yet now, it seems more like a process that takes place in the narrow corridors of power at FIFA and UEFA.

No wonder they so often seem so intoxicated with power.

FOR all the talk about the FA’S response to the horror and tragedy in Israel and Gaza, proceedings at Wembley on Friday night while England played Australia were about as appropriate as they could have been.