World Cup bid’s not such a bad idea – with the right salesmen
THIS country has a wonderful gift for selective amnesia in relation toworld Cup bids. The Prime Minister’s enthusiastic support for a combined UK and Ireland mission to host the party in 2030 and pledge of £2.8million towards making this a reality brought a predictably Pavlovian response.
It triggered repackaged images of The Boys of ’66 and Euro 96, only on an even grander scale. Of packed and pulsating stadiums, beer, barbecues and balmy summer evenings. Of football coming home.
Imagined so evocatively, it would surely be impossible for the rest of the world to resist such an invitation. The vote would be a landslide. Wouldn’t it?
The same buttons were pushed before England’s 2018World Cup bid.to make sure it got over the line, royalty was rolled out in the shape of David Beckham – and Princewilliam pitched in, too.
The bid garnered two of the available 22 votes, one of those being from the English FA.
In 2006 England were also humiliated.they went out in the second round with just two votes again.
In 1990 and 1998 they did not even make the starting gun, withdrawing their bids on both occasions.
The 2018 experience was so deflating that there was a never-again feel to its depressing wake.the
£21m it cost might as well have been flushed down the toilet.yet here we are again, on our back legs wagging our tails in expectation.
The opposition will be strong.the joint South American bid from Uruguay,argentina, Chile and Paraguay has a historical pull 100 years after the firstworld Cup was staged in Uruguay.
The Spain/portugal bid is also attractive, particularly if Morocco are part of it, as has been mooted.
The prospect of throwing ourselves at the mercy of FIFA, an organisation whose past practices have seen corruption on an industrial scale, is not appealing.
Is there any reason to think this exercise would be worthwhile?
Well, yes actually.
Theworld Cup voting system has changed and is now a one-country, one-vote process involving all FIFA’S 211 member associations, with the results published so it is clear who voted for who. Europe holds 55
SIR GEOFF HURST
SIR KENNY DALGLISH
WINNING
TEAM: Could this line-up bring the World Cup to these shores?
GARY LINEKER
NO REPEATS PLEASE: David Beckham and Wayne Rooney failed to
win over FIFA voters in 2018 – even with the help of royalty votes – the most of any continent. If the British Isles bid can see off the Iberian challenge at UEFA level, it will enjoy a significant leg-up.
The Uruguay bid will still be attractive but with the 2026World Cup being staged in the Americas – with the United States, Mexico and Canada hosting – that could count against the South Americans.
A UK and Ireland bid will require some charismatic and enthusiastic salesmen.
BORIS Johnson should be kept well away. His desire to “bring football home” may swell chests at home but the very suggestion that football belongs here will turn off potential voters abroad already suspicious of an English superiority complex.
The Celtic element to the bid will help in this regard but it still needs a good frontman who can cross continents empathetically.
Gary Lineker would be the ideal man for the job.a natural communicator, a player whose global career would resonate with the age range of most delegates and a Spanish speaker to boot.
As his wing men, how about Sir Geoff Hurst and Marcus Rashford to span the generations? Great Britons both.
From Scotland, Sir Kenny Dalglish, from Wales Gareth Bale and from the island of Ireland...roy Keane – the velvet-gloved ambassador. Joking there, obviously. The bid needs to make friends, not incinerate people with a single stare.
For a 48-teamworld Cup made up of 80 matches, the hosts will need plenty of grounds. UK and Ireland would have some great venues to sell, from the Aviva Stadium in Dublin to Everton’s new ground at Bramley-moore Dock.
Which one should host the final? I’d give it to the Principality Stadium. It’s the best ground of its size and choosing Cardiff would head off the detractors who would point outwembley hosted the final of the Euros in 2021.
It’s a gamble, of course – these bids always are – and an expensive one at that.
But when they come off, these events are priceless.
Remember the feeling that gripped the nation during the Olympics of 2012?Who wouldn’t want to share something similarly uplifting again?