RUSSIA ISN’T LOOKING SO COCKY NOW
THERE was an air of confidence, arrogance even, about the leader of Russia’s World Cup bid on the eve of the now infamous FIFA vote in Zurich in 2010.
At the time, some observers thought Alexei Sorokin was resigned to failure, such was his apparent insouciance. But Sorokin believed he could beat his main rivals, the English among them, and so it proved.
Fast forward four-and-a-half years and the Russian, who speaks flawless English with an American accent, is said to be more nervous about delivering a successful World Cup.
The problem is the collapse of the Russian economy, and a potential bill of £4billion just to build the 12 stadiums on time, with an estimated total bill of double that amount. Earlier this year only one venue had been completed, with Sorokin said to be telling sponsors the situation had become a major concern.
In January, Russian president Vladimir Putin utin moved to assure Sepppp Blatter the counntry’s economic c troubles would not impact on the 2018 tournament, even though it had emerged the Russian federation was struggling too pay the wages of their national coach, ach, Fabio Capello.
This came against the backdrop of conflict between the state and the Russian oligarchs who had promised to help finance building the stadiums before the value of the ruble plummeted.
Alexander Bubnov, a former Russia footballer now working as a TV analyst, claimed: ‘The level of corruption in Russian football is still very high.’
Last month there were reports that prison labour would have to be used to minimise the mounting cost of materials for Russia’s World Cup projects. The collapse of the ruble has made imported materials too expensive.
Putin is not about to throw in the towel, not when he now complains of an American conspiracy. He knows how valuable the World Cup could be for the ailing Russian economy. It might mean raising taxes to deliver it, but Putin will have his World Cup.
The situation highlights an issue that troubled observers in 2010, when Russia produced a World Cup bid inferior to England’s on so many levels. ‘I remember their presentation,’ said one member of the England bid team. ‘It was like a bad tourist video.’
Last year Harold Mayne-Nicholls, the senior official on the FIFA team who provided inspection reports on the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids, admitted England were ‘by far the strongest contender’.
As chairman of the group, Mayne- Nicholls toured 11 countries to evaluate the strengths of the bids. He said England’s offering was unmatched, and yet they secured just two votes for the 2018 tournament in a ballot of FIFA’s 22- strong executive committee.
‘England were on the top,’ Mayne-Nicholls told The Sunday Times. ‘They had the best concept, the best infrastructure and the people were very much involved. How could England have only got two votes? It was a big surprise.
‘I was there and I saw the faces of Prince William aand David Beckham, and they were shocked. It’s like when you are a first division team and you play a third division team and you lose by five goals.’
Mayne - Nicholls also expressed concerns that Qatar was ‘too hot’ and ‘too small’ to host the 2022 World Cup. Indeed, England’s bid officials were stunned by the outcome of the vote given the risk assessment reports on Russia and Qatar.
A 42- page FIFA report released last November, summarising Michael Garcia’s investigation, cleared Russia and Qatar of any wrongdoing.
But Garcia, a US attorney commissioned by FIFA, then claimed the document was ‘materially incomplete’ with ‘erroneous representations of the facts and conclusions’.
Now the FBI say the bidding processes for 2018 and 2022 form part of their investigation. With the World Cup qualification draw due to be staged in St Petersburg next month, it might be too late to pull the plug on Russia.
Even so, one wonders if the Russians are as relaxed this morning as they were five years ago in Zurich.