England’s Bid Failure: Who Is To Blame?

The cynics would have you believe the bid was doomed from the start. There has long been talk of an anti-English bias within FIFA, which was further fuelled by FIFA vice-president Jack Warner’s comments in October 2007, “Nobody in Europe likes England. England - who invented the sport - has never had any impact on world football. England at no time has had the love and support of Europe. For Europe, England is an irritant." So maybe this apparent dislike of England, at least in footballing terms, ran so deep in the organisation it turned voters away right from the out.

But that would not explain the claims of broken promises of votes from FIFA officials. It is reported that nine members pledged to David Beckham and Prince William that they would give England their vote, only for us to then receive just two. Allegedly this is down to Sepp Blatter speaking to members about the “evil of the media” just before the vote. If true, he of course was referring to the Sunday Times probe into two members of the committee in October and the BBC’s Panorama documentary exposing corruption of FIFA executives, which aired strategically, albeit somewhat controversially, this Monday, before the vote. There was much outrage directed at both outlets, just as now many are laying the blame squarely at their doors, calling them “unpatriotic”.

But now ironically, many of those who criticised the media for harming the bid’s chances are themselves calling for an investigation into the voting committee. There is suspicion surrounding England’s poor showing in terms of votes, especially considering the strength of the presentation. David Cameron took time from his duties to attend the proceedings in Zurich, which is more than can be said of Russian PM Vladimir Putin, Prince William also travelled as part of a well thought PR campaign to bring attention to the bid in the light of the buzz around the upcoming royal wedding and David Beckham wowed audiences with his knack for charming at press conferences, even playing the dead granddad card during the presentation. All this, combined with Qatar’s shockingly successful bid, could understandably lead people to believe that something fishy had been going on within FIFA, or at least the voting committee.

So what next for England? How will the FA and indeed the nation recover from this blow? Already there have been many approaches, with Roger Burden's dramatic decision to pull out of the race for chair of the Football Association. Leeds chairman Ken Bates has called for England and other nations to break away from FIFA in protest whilst Arsene Wenger, more sensibly, struck up the call for voting reform. Which direction will the FA take in order to save face? Or will they take the sage advice of Ipswich Town manager Roy Keane and “Get over it, nobody died."

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