World Cup failure: Aftermath
By Ian Dunt
Leaders in the worlds of football and politics were picking up the pieces today, after a disastrous bid to hold the World Cup ended with English humiliation on the world stage.
Accusation and counter-accusation were fired at the media, Fifa and Russia, with allegations of corruption filling newspaper columns.
Bid chief executive Andy Anson appeared to blame the media, after the BBC and the Times ran exposes of Fifa corruption in the run up to the vote.
“We have spoken to some executive committee members. And I’ll be very clear that what they are saying to us is one thing,” Mr Anson said.
“I’ll caveat this by saying this is not our excuse at all. But they are saying to us that our media killed us.”
“My only issue, as you know, with the Sunday Times and the BBC, and more the BBC, was the timing of it,” he continued.
“For us, it was almost impossible to bounce back with three or four weeks to go.
“And then in the last week to actually know that Fifa executive committee members were saying to us that our media is killing us.”
But Mr Anson reserved some scorn for the Fifa officials themselves, who had clearly not been honest about their voting intentions with the England team.
“I do feel people let us down, I’d be lying if I said they didn’t. People who promised us our vote obviously went the other way,” he said.
“I honestly felt that we had enough comfort, enough people, enough room to hope that things would go alright and we would go through the first round.”
Trinidad’s Jack Warner, who was the subject of corruption allegations on the Panorama programme, decided not to vote for England, despite the bid relying on his support as its cornerstone.
Years of effort to secure Mr Warner’s support came to nothing after he and the CONCACAF federation members, from the Caribbean, north and central America, decided not to back the campaign. England received just two votes, one of which came from British Fifa vice-president Geoff Thompson.
Media reports suggested that Fifa president Sepp Blatter raised the issue of the media allegations at an executive committee meeting of the famously secretive organisation on Wednesday, and even handed out cutting of the most negative coverage.
The timing of the Russian victory felt symbolic, coming just as Wikileaks cables raised suggested American officials considered the country a “Mafia state” beset with corruption.
President Vladimir Putin, who delivered a thinly veiled attack on British press coverage of the competition before it closed, lashed out at the corruption allegations.
“These countries blame people of corruption, they blame people without any grounds or evidence, it can be seen as putting pressure on Fifa members, and then they put it in their mass media all over the world,” Mr Putin said.
Downing Street refused to congratulate Russia on its success last night.
London Mayor Boris Johnson suggested Fifa had to reform, as media commentators from every political persuasion lambasted the organisation for accepting the bids from the two organisations suffering the greatest allegations of corruption, with the two largest budgets and the lowest scores in Fifa’s technical assessment – Russia and Quatar.
“People will think its [Fifa’s] days are now numbered in its current form,” Mr Johnson said.
While more diplomatic, the prime minister’s statement hinted at his irritation.
“According to Fifa we had the best technical bid and the strongest commercial bid and the country is passionate about football,” David Cameron said.
“But it turns out that is not enough.”
Speaking at a dinner last night, he also revealed the extraordinary lengths to which Prince William went to secure victory.
“I met Prince William coming out of one of these meetings and said, ‘how did it go’,” Mr Cameron said.
“He said it had gone really, really well. I said, ‘gosh how did you do it, what did you offer him? An invitation to the wedding?’ He said, ‘prime minister, I went so far I think I offered to marry him’.”
Prince William said: “Well, obviously we’re extremely disappointed and so is the team. We had a very strong bid but sadly it didn’t work out.
“The guys are quite down at the moment but they put their whole backs into it. It’s very sad. We gave everything we could and the guys, I’m so proud of them.
“I’m sorry for the fans back home. We gave everything we could.”
