Why England need Gary Lineker to get off the TV and rescue the doomed 2018 World Cup bid - Martin Lipton's big lunchtime read

By Martin Lipton in Laptop with Martin Lipton

Published 11:39 12/11/09

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England's bid to host the 2018 World Cup is not dead and buried yet - but perhaps it has reached the "Cassani" moment.

FA chairman Lord Triesman is expected out in Qatar this weekend to press the flesh with influential FIFA members Mohammed Bin Hammam and Ricardo Teixeira, using the World Cup warm-up game with Brazil as part of the bidding process that has just 13 more months to run.

But while Triesman's political instincts served him well in his early days at what was then Soho Square, his antennae do not appear to have been working in recent months.

Triesman has become the Aunt Sally of the bid for critics, who have used his part-time role (and £100,000 annual remuneration) as just one of the sticks with which to beat the former Labour Party General Secretary and the campaign led by Andy Anson.

The recent interventions by that pillar of moral and financial rectitude, Trinidad's Jack Warner, have upped the ante, with panic starting to set in as expectations that England only had to turn up to be awarded the tournament have been revised.

Of course, the truth is that England were only ever favourites to get the World Cup in the eyes of the bookies - who know that patriotic punters will always back the national cause. 

The likelihood is that the 2018 World Cup will be in Europe - after the financial gambles of South Africa next summer and Brazil in 2014, FIFA want a "safe" option, and with the two tournament television deals front-loaded, and most of the cash coming from European broadcasters, that means a 10th tournament in the old continent - but England were always up against it.

Initially, it was Russia, with the financial backing and muscle of the Oligarchs, which seemed the likely option. Giving the tournament to eastern Europe for the first time would have been an easy PR sell, masking the amount of money that would be slushed around.

But with the global recession biting deepest in the east - many banks are now refusing to lend to Russia or the former Soviet States because of the risk of the deals being reneged upon - Spain, with or without Portugal, has emerged as the bid to beat.

Remember that Real Madrid were one of the founder members of FIFA and that Spanish FA chief, and FIFA executive committee member Angel Maria Villa Llona is not only a familiar FIFA face but, like Michel Platini and Franz Beckenbauer, a former international player - with 22 caps for Spain.

Spain has the climate to appeal to FIFA and now the existing facilities which, if not quite matching those in England, are not too far behind.

While Platini insists he is only concerned with bringing the World Cup to Europe, not to a particular country, he is ready to put all his efforts behind the bid he sees as the most likely winner, and if that means pinning arms up behind backs among the seven other UEFA voters, then he will do it.

At this stage, England's only definite vote will come from former FA chairman Geoff Thompson, who has been ludicrously and stupidly ostracised by Triesman.

Thompson's personal relationship with Turkey's Senes Erzik makes that a possible vote, while Beckenbauer is another who has suggested he would like to see the tournament on English soil.

FA bid chiefs are targeting Africa's four votes and the likes of Thailand's Worawi Makudi and the new kids on the block from Oceania, Reynald Temarii of Tahiti.

For the FA to have any chance of winning the bid, they need six votes in the first round, enough to ensure going through to the latter stages of the elimination contest and that there is widespread support - that, in short, it looks like a bid that can win.

Getting Sepp Blatter to canvass privately for England would make that possible but the Swiss will only lobby if the FA comes out and gives its backing for his "six plus five" rule over the nationality of players in club sides, and that is unlikely with the Premier League, which makes up half of the FA board, being steadfastly opposed.

But to make any intimations of support into concrete votes, the England bid must be energised and reinvigorated - just as happened to the 2012 Olympic bid which seemed to be foundering under American businesswoman Barbara Cassani at a similar stage of the bidding process in 2004.

Cassani stood down, to be replaced by Lord Seb Coe and barely a year later, the champagne corks were being simultaneously popped in London and Singapore when IOC head Jacques Rogge announced the winner.

There are plenty of whispers now that Triesman, like Cassani, needs to fall on his sword. The problem, of course, is that English football does not have a Coe, a Beckenbauer or Platini, who has the international standing and political skills required to charm and strong-arm in equal measure.

Sir Trevor Brooking is a national institution and has the political skills but does not have the same international standing or cachet of Sir Bobby Charlton - who in turn is simply too trusting, as was proven in the failed bid to land the 2006 tournament.

If there is a former player who fits the bill, then it is Gary Lineker. But does he really want to give up his cushy life at the Beeb for 12 months of international glad-handing and deal-making?

Can England salvage the bid? Let us know by leaving a comment below...

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