England launch their claims for the 2018 football World Cup
Last updated 19/05/2009 23:58:43
Wembley Stadium - England launch their claims for the 2018 football World Cup
England launched their claims to stage the 2018 World Cup Finals this week and were immediately established as odds on favourites!
England, admittedly with British bookmakers, were in at 4/5 on with their closest rivals, a joint bid between Spain and Portugal at 5-2; Russia 5-1; joint bid with Holland and Belgium 9-1; Australia 10-1 with Indonesia outsiders of the nine contenders at 100-1.
Already Arsenal, Aston Villa, Birmingham City, Bristol City, Chelsea, Derby County, Everton, Hull City, Leeds United, Leicester City , Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City MK Dons, Newcastle United, Nottingham Forest, Portsmouth, Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday, Sunderland, Tottenham Hotspur, Twickenham and, of course, Wembley have made it known their grounds are available.
This list will be reduced to around seventeen when the Football Association submit their final application to FIFA and, if the bid is successful, the final twelve venues will be decided.
England, not having staged the competition since they won it in 1966, are favourites this time having failed in a bid to stage the competition in 2006. Their closest rivals, Spain and Portugal, may suffer because FIFA were not happy with the joint staging of the World Cup between Japan and North Korea and the same problem will beset the Holland/ Belgium bid.
Russia has never held it but while this will help their bid, their time zones will not! Much the same could be said about Australia where their game and their stadia are still growing while Mexico, Japan and the USA have all held the finals recently.
The English bid is receiving the full backing of the Prime Minister and the Government and the documents must be with FIFA by early December this year. By May 2010 the remaining documents and the bid book must be submitted with FIFA conducting their inspections between July and October of next year and the final decision, for both 2018 and 2022 , being announced in December next year.
There is little doubt that England fully deserves the honour as the Premiership is the most watched football around the globe while even the second tier, the Championship, boasts the fourth biggest attendances in Europe.
The bid chairman is Lord Triesman and amongst the bid vice-presidents are David Beckham, Prince William, John Barnes, Fabio Capello and Gordon Taylor while a significant name amongst the non-executive directors is a certain Sebastian Coe, supporter of Chelsea, and the same Lord Coe who so successfully led the London 2012 London Olympic bid!
Should England land the honour it would give Britain what Gordon Brown described as "the greatest decade in British sporting history" with the Commonwealth Games, the Olympic Games already certain and bids in for Rugby, Cricket and now Football World Cup competitions.