You Cant Criticise the World Cup and Still Expect to Host It

Richard Northedge


Yes, the media was partly responsible for England failing to host the 2018 World Cup. Not because of the BBC and Sunday Times accusations about Fifa, however, but because the media carping would continue. Why ask an unfriendly nation to host the football tournament when so many other countries would welcome it?



There was much wrong with Fifa’s decision-making but much wrong with the English bid too. Any company that has pitched for a major project would have to be much more businesslike to win. Export orders or domestic sales are not secured by arrogantly expecting to be chosen: they have to be worked for.


England’s case might have been good – but so was the opposition’s. Yet we acted like a job applicant who tells the interviewer when he can start rather than why he should.


The FA’s bid team complains it was misled by Fifa delegates who had pledged their votes, but that suggests the team knows little about selling and less about Fifa’s voting system. Any salesman pitching for orders soon learns not to celebrate when buyers congratulate them on having a good product – that is the sort of polite line buyers say to all the companies that pitch, but only one of the good products gets the order.


However, Fifa’s voting system genuinely allows delegates to vote for three teams. They keep on voting until one country has a majority of the votes, eliminating the weakest each time, but this is not the sort of single-transferable-vote system that elected Ed Miliband as UK Labour Party leader or on which the UK will hold a referendum on in 2011. Delegates hold a fresh vote in each round.


That’s why the Belgian/Dutch vote fell between first and second rounds.


So it was not just the two votes for England in the first round that were re-allocated to their second-choices in the next round, all 22 delegates voted afresh. That means a delegate could promise to vote for Belgium/Netherlands in the first round, England in the second and Russia if there was a third round. But because England went out immediately, countries pledging it their votes did not get a chance to honour their promise.


England also needs to rethink what constitutes bribery, corruption and inducements before it complains at other countries. Not only England’s handbags for wives are questionable: promising a friendly match in Thailand if the Thai delegate gave his vote – or top Olympic hotels in London for Fifa delegates – fail the test too.


But the British media must also be part of the reason for England’s rejection. Nevermind the specific allegations before the Fifa vote, look how the UK press keeps criticising the London Olympics, doubting the budget (correctly), questioning the popularity, carping about the economic benefits and complaining a bout the disruption. If the home press cannot back a bid, what chance support from the international media? If this is what a Sunday paper and television do before the Fifa vote, what would happen over the next eight years?


Why choose a country whose own media are so negative when there are other more compliant nations? Big sports events frequently go to developing countries because their governments pledge huge sums to raise their international profiles. That’s why Russia and Qatar bid so successfully. If those countries happen to have a positive media rather than one that knocks its own tournament, wouldn’t any rational Fifa delegate chose such a nation as host?