England's Bid for the 2018 (Football) World Cup

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/8321089.stm

Are the WAG's part of an advisory group? ;)

A timely thread. The bid is already part of our 'golden decade of sport'.

http://oraclespeak.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/gordon-brown21.jpg
"One Ryder Cup and two Rugby World Cups"

http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m4/sep2009/5/3/gordon-brown-labour-conference-pic-getty-394541581.jpg
"I can today announce not one but two Ryder Cups - representing a Ryder Cup increase of 100% under this government"

Wait, the 2013 Rugby League World Cup AND the 2014 Commonwealth Games??

anyway good luck england but the 2018 world cup is coming to Westfield Shoppingtown Headquarters australia

Pah - we don't even need to mention the 2011 world badminton championships.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c7/US-2020Bid.jpg

Ugh, we have the worst logo of the bunch, thats for sure. Not like we have a shot in hell, but hey!

"I don't care if you're red, yellow, blue..."

Anyone think England will get it?

Uh, no?

I am absolutely certain we will.

I think sam is right.

Because everyone loves fat pink dudes without tops on a sunny 17 degrees day in the background of a Argentina vs Ivory Coast thriller.

No.

http://img.metro.co.uk/i/pix/2008/07/westhamfightAP_450x300.jpg

Bid in crisis - "ante up" says 'Richard Caborn'

Are the Tories up for this?

Surely not. The government can't even afford any cash for it except by loan as it is. The handbag story is bloody ridiculous too - it doesn't get much worse than a FIFA Committee member declining a gift as unethical.

http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/1339/logoba.jpg

I find the logo quite endearing though

ewww, that isn't real is it? are they... trying to make the olympic logo look good in comparison?

bid logos have to be shit, its the rules

seems a non-story anyway - no talk of other countries having particualrly strong(er) bids. they will definitely hold either 18 or 22 in Europe so on that basis it strikes me as a 3 horse race between England, Portugal-Spain (tho joint bids aren't popular now iirc) and Russia (can see them winning).

It's a bit cheeky of Japan, bidding again already. I can't really imagine World Cups in Russia or Indonesia - might be quite cool.

Phew! Bid back on track: decision-making process streamlined. I fucking love this sport.

ex-Birmingham director Karren Brady are among six members to have stood down from England's 2018 World Cup bid team.

thank fuck

No.

http://img.metro.co.uk/i/pix/2008/07/westhamfightAP_450x300.jpg

― Lord Byron Bay of Pigs (SeekAltRoute), Thursday, October 22, 2009 7:32 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol this happened in the US

England'll get one, USA the other

btw I've always wondered what is on that screaming tattooed guy's face, what do you think that is?

That's tattoos? I was thinking Global Hypercolor was making a comeback.

I would hazard a guess that they have been covering in that stupid silly string stuff that comes out of aerosols at the sort of "wacky" "fun" parties that I'd rather not be at. Why they fuck anyone's spraying it around football matches is anyone's guess.

What's that guy on the left up the top of the stairs got tucked up his t-shirt?

Nation holds breath as cities bid for chance to host tourney

I mean, how much effort does London really need to put in to its bid? They should just send in one of those postcards with punks on the front and 'you know you want it' scrawled on the back.

You'd think Manchester wouldn't need to bother either, just put a big picture of Carlos Tevez and something from the Commonwealth Games up there.

lol Plymouth

getting big cynical vibes from the press about the bid a lot of the time. and it seems almost impossible for the FA/bid to not come across as smug and arrogant...esp. with those smug arrogant tossers at FIFA :/

They should just send in one of those postcards with punks on the front and 'you know you want itfuck you sad provincials' scrawled on the back.

That might sting the FA into leading with Pride Park as world cup final venue

pretty sure that the FAI could broker a deal in exchange for admitting henry didn't handle it

Football really is coming home: hero Brown gets Jack Warner's support

"most importantly he didn't feel England had any divine right (to host the tournament) ... Next week I will meet David Beckham in Cape Town. These are not for my ego, but they are the assets that the bid should be using and I am happy to see that they are being used."

I feel unclean just reading this stuff.

Triesman out

seriously this whole thing is a fucking joke...why don't countries just apply to host, make a detailed plan, and it's reviewed and acted on and a country gets the world cup. instead it's like each country has to perform an erotic dance in front of sepp, assemble a crack team of celebs and ex pros to back the bid, and buy the rival bidders a bottle of wine and some flowers. ffs just give england the world cup, they won't have had it in 50 years by 2018, everyone loves football there and they have a ton of stadia. NO BRAINER. some crazy old lord should have nothing to do with the process!

Good to see he's already focusing on the important issues

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi-UaUUaDhc

everyone loves football there
Really, everyone?

i'm sure the majority of the country couldn't care less.

blast the mail on sunday and journalism in general into space please

not_goodwin woefully offtm, would estimate 70% of english-born residents at least claim to support a team + the national side

Claim being the key word here.

supporting a national side in a sport is the most faint expression of enthusiasm for said sport.

dude I bet you ten English pounds that the majority of English passport-holders care about the football team doing well

and that England cares more about football than any country except Brazil, Portugal and like I dunno um Spain maybe

possibly Argentina too but come on GET REAL as one might say - just because you don't like football, doesn't mean it's a minority thing

anyway can we focus some motherfucken hatred on the real enemy here: old-paper journalism

Don't think it's universally loved in Spain, certainly not the national side. Think you should've used Italy.

oh wait the Spanish are all goin' round claiming their provinces deserve autonomy

some of spain's provinces are as much provinces of spain as scotland is a province of england tbh

L' única lluita que es perd ... és la que s'abandona !

hi dere

I believe all this, fuck fifa, they are scum.

yeah but it's not gonna go anywhere, brazenness is fifa's first characteristic

yeah i agree entirely, nobody tells fifa what to do. the likes of that jack warner prick, if ever a guy was corrupt, appearing in the media non stop to continually flirt with bids.

They should've called FIFA on it while the bidding was in progress, and screw the chances of making the second round of voting. Now everything can get explained as sour grapes.

Everything here's a fiasco: the FA trying to make it a quid pro quo for the 39th game, Brown announcing the bid before the FA had decided on it, etc. What a shambles. And still should've got more than two votes. Meanwhile fucking Qatar are licking their chops.

Jack Warner gets two votes as well, he's allowed to have a placeman on the committee for reason that's never explained.

A sad reminder of how close we all were to enjoying the worldwide travels of the 39th game.

Government raises FIFA withdrawal possibility, as predicted here months ago

Yada yada

I heard that interview, it was a lot of hot air

FIFA could give one fuck if we withdraw or not. why it's beneath us to form alliances with other major FAs - many of who must be equally incensed about this Qatar bullshit - and exert pressure from within, god only knows. 20 countries threatening to withdraw wd be a meaningful threat.

still, good job on demolishing our image as the most hypocritical prigs in the world.

Several of those other major FAs have hosted a major tournament lately as well, so they've either got nothing to lose or they've got their own bribery skeletons.

Jack Warner, bless him, ran for election in T&T on an anti-corruption ticket. He won and is now my aunt's MP and the Minister for Works and Transport.

I'm genuinely amazed by that

That's Trinidad for you. In fairness, he's probably no worse than the guys he replaced.

He denies most of the allegations but the idea at the centre - that he's supposedly trying to build a legacy for T&T sport by fair means or foul - won't necessarily work against him. Trinidad's never going to host a World Cup and sees none of the money for developing players like Kenwyne Jones, Dwight Yorke and...Russell Latapy. If he can wangle 2.5 million out of wealthy countries and plough that back into the state's lousy infrastructure, i don't think anyone's going to care much.

Still reckon he'd have pocketed the bulk of it himself though.

didn't r keane have a few choice words for him a year or two back

more on concacaf jack

http://blogs.reuters.com/soccer/2011/05/05/what-happens-in-concacaf-stays-in-concacaf/

Football bodies Fifa and Uefa have appealed against a European ruling that the World Cup and Euro Championships must be on free-to-air TV in the UK.

In February, the European General Court said the UK could keep the events on a list of "protected" events of national sporting interest shown for free.

It means the two tournaments cannot be sold exclusively to pay-TV firms.

Fifa and Uefa say they cannot sell the events fairly, and the cases will now go to the European Court of Justice.

alright let's just leave these fucking scumbags to it

they are such dickheads. would love if euro footie associations told them where to stick it to be honest.

I think Uefa do a pretty good job usually, but this is just mental. These two bodies are behaving as if they have no idea how precarious their positions are. They're completely dependent on the goodwill of basically the major clubs, and in other countries to varying extents the FAs, and they're acting like it's the other way round. Half-a-dozen (maybe even fewer) big countries withdrawing from Fifa would kill the world cup for good.

The Euros work imo precisely because they're not too demanding - relatively small in scale, not far away, not really taken that seriously tbh. Uefa have already fucked up the scale of the thing from 2012 onwards, this is a step towards turning it into a pressure situation.

I'd have in principle some sympathy with anyone forced to sell into a rigged market, but not here - these are two regulatory bodies, they're not supposed to be private companies, so there's none of the pressures to maximise revenue that a private company has.

Would the national associations be opposed to selling the rights to Sky or is it more of a political consideration at a higher level?

It's at a political level - each country is entitled to keep a list of free-to-air events, which I presume is the only reason Sky hasn't bought Wimbledon, the Grand National, The Open, etc etc already. It's a reasonably important issue in the political world I think, I'm sure I remember the extent of the list getting some publicity a few years back. I'm sure the national associations would prefer the extra cash.

I can only assume that other countries mostly don't have the World Cup or Euros on their lists, hence this challenge.

some more fifa-bashing in today's Guardian

Sky Sports News strangely quiet on this latest angle of keeping football free-to-air.

I wonder if our new overlords will review what the protected events should be - not that they are in Murdoch's pocket in any way, I wouldn't even suggest such a thing.

think the eu are quite keen on a general level to ringfence events like this, aren't they? that's my memory of their position at least.

it would be hugely sad if the world cup ever moved to pay tv. football dominating terrestrial tv is a really brilliant part of the wc.

also wimbledon or the open on sky...ugh. i pay for sky and this repulses me. ads during the open....NO. bad enough they got augusta this year.

football dominating terrestrial tv is a really brilliant part of the wc.

especially all the moaning letters about it written to newspapers

"As a fan of soap operas, I feel that 4 weeks of them being moved about the schedule slightly is the most heinous crime conceivable."

I'm imagining that read in a Scottish accent on Points Of View.

the best ones are when sci fi nerds moan about the Beeb not showing some repeat that they've already got on DVD anyway

I fear for world cups longer-term. Brazil's Brazil and Russia has a decent chance of meaning something, but I don't see much reason for anyone to make an effort after that.

i still don't really believe Qatar will happen

but the EU must know that the divorce rate in the UK wd go thru the roof if we were forced to watch every match of the WC down the pub

the crisp industry moguls must be rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect.

and then licking the remaining crumbs and msg and glee from their hands.

also i can't see many pubs opening for Bahrain-Costa Rica in a dead rubber match from Group F at 5 in the morning.

Fifa presidential candidate Mohamed Bin Hammam has said football's world governing body is not corrupt.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/11/08/sports/s064740S95.DTL

Can't wait for all the complaints from the players about the effect the wind towers are having on their game

"Fan expectation needs to be a little more relaxed," he said on the conference sideline.

Well, then, thats one way of putting it.

to every football fan anywhere ever

so their unique selling point of "air conditioned football in the desert" is now "football in the desert"

This is my favourite bit

The firm built a small prototype of an air-conditioned stadium in Doha to help persuade a FIFA inspection team that the tiny nation's ambitious World Cup project could succeed.

Shoulda built a tiny prototype tbf

The thing is, this could be a brilliant tournament to go to - tiny distances, local population uninterested, you could conceivably attend nearly every match and maybe by 2022 I'd be able to afford it. But even if it does go ahead, it'll be crap. Even if international football's still a thing then, the big names won't be arsed or possibly won't even travel at all like Argentina 78.

maybe we'll all be dead!

Yay!

"It is part of the building tradition in the Gulf to create wind towers, which naturally ventilate.

It's going to take a lot of them to keep a 47,000 seater stadium cool.