World Cup 2018 & 2022 bids

The FIFA technical report said that our bid was the most feasible.
That translated to 1 extra vote, excuse me if its arrogant to think that if you have the best technical bid it should translate to more votes.

FIFA technical report I am afraid means FA, by that I mean feck All. All excuses being bandied about to try and smooth things over.
 
My Take on FA/FIFA
OK, I know a lot of posts have been made on the recent FIFA decision not to give the WC to England. I also know that a lot of criticism has been levelled at FIFA, I do however think there is more to this than FIFA being corrupt and the FA clueless.

For a start, I think that the arrogance of the FA and the belief that we are the be all and end all of International football had a lot to do with the negative re-action of FIFA and it’s members. Now, that is not to say that I think that the members of FIFA are squeaky clean, far from it. Warner has been involved with controversy for as long as I can remember. I also knew weeks ago that the tournament would go to Russia, I also know that it was a well known fact in the FA circles that this was the case and yet we still persisted in sending messers Cameron, Princey boy and Beckham etc. on an expensive worthless mission in the arrogant belief that their presence would change minds.
We have to start looking in at ourselves and see what it really is that we do for football. We have a third rate national team run by a coach/manager who is way past his sell by date. All the gung ho we had before going to South Africa was completely wiped away at a stroke, we were totally inept of ideas and skills and yet we still proclaim to be one of the leaders. Despite the total embarrassment of pretending to know what we were doing we still employ the highest paid coach in the world to achieve feck all. Yes, he told us this was all going to change and what happens? We get totally humiliated by one of the worst teams from the WC, France, who have gone away and completely re-invented themselves in only a few months and yet we still persist in keeping Capello employed. Prior to that we had yet another clueless pratt in Erikson. Does that not tell you that our FA are completely out of touch with the game?
Let’s now look at the development of young players for the future, well I would if there was something to look foreword to. We are bereft of technical ability, our national side still pump the ball forward or sideways to a centre forward who the opposition can so easily take out of the game. We were supposed to have a football excellence centre in Burton, what has happened to that? We generate and make so much money out of football and yet we have no idea how to invest in technical excellence and facilities. In France they have twelve elite academies, we have? NONE! Most youth coaches are coaching how they used to be coached , shouting and screaming from the sidelines and must win at all cost. Most coaches take an FA level one course and then think they are it. Trouble there is that all they are taught is the welfare and PC of coaching young lads. Proper technical coaching has to start at a very early age, end of.
Pitches and training facilities are a disgrace, especially when football is supposed to be our national game. You would think that with all the money made from football we would have the best facilities in the world and kids would not have to train in the winter at the local schools gym hall.
We then have the arrogant, clueless FA going to a WC presentation expecting FIFA to bow down to our “slick” presentation and then totally blaming the corrupt FIFA when we didn’t win. Just imagine what £15m pounds could have brought in the way of facilities and improvements etc. in our own country instead of chasing a worthless dream that complete arrogance thought otherwise.
Yes, there has to be changes in the FIFA methods and more transparencies in dealings, we on the other hand have to show the world that we are capable of producing top rate players coming from state of the art facilities and methods. Perhaps when we get our own house in order we will be then in a better position to expect more from others.
This is just a short brief on the situation. Anyone who has coached football will know the frustrations of trying to teach kids the right way and then still have to deal with “winning”. I have given presentations of the way we should be coaching kids to several coaches and well known players. Several nodding of heads of approval but thats it. I was also contacted a short time ago from a French contact asking if I knew any coaches who would like to give advise and presentations overseas. I told him his best bet would be to find a coach from France.

I agree with all of this, but 2 things. Our charity work in Football is only rivaled by FIFA in terms of commitment and money (although I do wish we would make more of it available to our own countries grass roots). Also the amount of actual work we've done for FIFA in the build up to this, as well as agreeing lucrative yet pointless friendlies to individual FIFA EXCO members, charity work for FIFA and delegations of some of our main players at the request of EXCO members visiting their respective countries, more so than any of the other bid countries combined, resulted in 1 vote. I still believe and it was obvious, for a long time that Russia were going to win. 1 vote though. FIFA were laughing their bollocks off at us for a long time. It makes the whole final year of bidding pointless and the money that was spent could have gone to our grass roots if FIFA made known their intentions and allow countries to drop out, instead of convincing them to stay in the contest for the sole purpose of keeping the cash flow running. I never believed we had a chance. I get annoyed at FIFA demanding United to play in the world club championship when we really didn't want to on the premise that it would hurt our previous bid when FIFA all along wanted it to go to South Africa (Germany won it at the time only due to a mini revolt against Blatter on the day). Warner and Blatter should be in prison for their embezzlement of the FIFA's own funds. Our own FA needs a serious kick up the arse as well. To many suits and accountants involved only caring about financial aspects rather than the future of the sport, hindered in a way by the success and money of the Premier League, believing that because the cash flow keeps coming in they're doing it right.
 
FIFA technical report I am afraid means FA, by that I mean feck All. All excuses being bandied about to try and smooth things over.

Yep. The rumour is that only 3 out of 22 actually bothered to read it.
Maybe thats where we are going wrong.
We believe in due process, accountability and basing things on information...

they believe in whim and getting whatever they can grab out of it.
 
My Take on FA/FIFA
OK, I know a lot of posts have been made on the recent FIFA decision not to give the WC to England. I also know that a lot of criticism has been levelled at FIFA, I do however think there is more to this than FIFA being corrupt and the FA clueless.

For a start, I think that the arrogance of the FA and the belief that we are the be all and end all of International football had a lot to do with the negative re-action of FIFA and it’s members. Now, that is not to say that I think that the members of FIFA are squeaky clean, far from it. Warner has been involved with controversy for as long as I can remember. I also knew weeks ago that the tournament would go to Russia, I also know that it was a well known fact in the FA circles that this was the case and yet we still persisted in sending messers Cameron, Princey boy and Beckham etc. on an expensive worthless mission in the arrogant belief that their presence would change minds.
We have to start looking in at ourselves and see what it really is that we do for football. We have a third rate national team run by a coach/manager who is way past his sell by date. All the gung ho we had before going to South Africa was completely wiped away at a stroke, we were totally inept of ideas and skills and yet we still proclaim to be one of the leaders. Despite the total embarrassment of pretending to know what we were doing we still employ the highest paid coach in the world to achieve feck all. Yes, he told us this was all going to change and what happens? We get totally humiliated by one of the worst teams from the WC, France, who have gone away and completely re-invented themselves in only a few months and yet we still persist in keeping Capello employed. Prior to that we had yet another clueless pratt in Erikson. Does that not tell you that our FA are completely out of touch with the game?
Let’s now look at the development of young players for the future, well I would if there was something to look foreword to. We are bereft of technical ability, our national side still pump the ball forward or sideways to a centre forward who the opposition can so easily take out of the game. We were supposed to have a football excellence centre in Burton, what has happened to that? We generate and make so much money out of football and yet we have no idea how to invest in technical excellence and facilities. In France they have twelve elite academies, we have? NONE! Most youth coaches are coaching how they used to be coached , shouting and screaming from the sidelines and must win at all cost. Most coaches take an FA level one course and then think they are it. Trouble there is that all they are taught is the welfare and PC of coaching young lads. Proper technical coaching has to start at a very early age, end of.
Pitches and training facilities are a disgrace, especially when football is supposed to be our national game. You would think that with all the money made from football we would have the best facilities in the world and kids would not have to train in the winter at the local schools gym hall.
We then have the arrogant, clueless FA going to a WC presentation expecting FIFA to bow down to our “slick” presentation and then totally blaming the corrupt FIFA when we didn’t win. Just imagine what £15m pounds could have brought in the way of facilities and improvements etc. in our own country instead of chasing a worthless dream that complete arrogance thought otherwise.
Yes, there has to be changes in the FIFA methods and more transparencies in dealings, we on the other hand have to show the world that we are capable of producing top rate players coming from state of the art facilities and methods. Perhaps when we get our own house in order we will be then in a better position to expect more from others.
This is just a short brief on the situation. Anyone who has coached football will know the frustrations of trying to teach kids the right way and then still have to deal with “winning”. I have given presentations of the way we should be coaching kids to several coaches and well known players. Several nodding of heads of approval but thats it. I was also contacted a short time ago from a French contact asking if I knew any coaches who would like to give advise and presentations overseas. I told him his best bet would be to find a coach from France.
Brilliant, brilliant piece mate.
 
The constant focus on the technical report by people complaining about England not getting the WC is foolish - it is just 1 of many factors to be taken into account when assesing which is the best bid - the report just shows how prepared a country is to host the World Cup today. But the point that people seem to miss is that the tournament is 8 (or even 12) years away so there is no need to be ready today, in fact a lot of our facilities will be outdated by 2018 whereas Russia will have state of art stadiums built specifically for the World Cup to show off.

As I mentioned before, we in England missed the boat when we lost out on World Cup 2006 to Germany - we were geared up for that one with the new Wembley, Emirates Stadium, Old Trafford expansion etc all set to complete around that time. That was the right time for us and in hindsight I realise that 2018 was too late.
 
The constant focus on the technical report by people complaining about England not getting the WC is foolish - it is just 1 of many factors to be taken into account when assesing which the best bid - the report just shows how prepared a country is to host the World Cup today. But the point that people seem to miss is that the tournament is 8 (or even 12) years away so there is no need to be ready today, in fact a lot of our facilities will be outdated by 2018 whereas Russia will have state of art stadiums built specifically for the World Cup to show off.

As I mentioned before, we in England missed the boat when we lost out on World Cup 2006 to Germany - we were geared up for that one with the new Wembley, Emirates Stadium, Old Trafford expansion etc all set to complete around that time. That was the right time for us and in hindsight I realise that 2018 was too late.

Our club infrastructure will not be outdated in 8 years time, unless their is a total collapse of the game in England. .
 
Our club infrastructure will not be outdated in 8 years time, unless their is a total collapse of the game in England. .

Well maybe 'outdated' was the wrong word - but I was just trying to get across the point that FIFA prefer brand new stadia that is built specifically for the World Cup. That even goes for developed football nations like France and Germany who built new flagship stadia for the World Cup (Stade De France and the completely renovated Olympic Stadium in Berlin).

Our bid did include plans for some new stadia but it wasnt really the main ones, more the supporting cast.
 
On a sideish note....will Old Trafford look as it is now in a decade or so? sure it's got a massive capacity but it can hardly be described as state of the art, it's more of stadium completed to 60s' specifications.
 
FAO ukbob

Good piece, though it misses the point.

firstly the poor state of the national game in England, though very true, has no bearing on the bid, by the fact that the two 'jokes' got the bids proves.

I would agree to a point the attitude of the English press(the rags not the genuine journalistic articles that pointed to FIFA corruption), and to a lesser extent the attitude of the FA did have a factor on the decision. Though I am not supporting what cheif says about lubing your arse to get the bid.

there is nothing wrong with sending your best ambassadors to lend weight to the bid especially from all understanding they did have a significant number of votes going their way.

Obviously they were lied to their faces, because if they had not done so, it would have been too obvious that the Russian bid was already accepted...with loads of mullah....and the whole bid process would have been seen to be a mockery.....which in the end it was.


The choice is simple. Either we are prepared to 'outpay' the others to get things done in FIFA or we try and get other members to change FIFA as it is now. That would be the acceptable course of action. How do we do this? Stand up for your principals and so that the other members in UEFA can see as leaders again. Even if England, Spain, Italy and Germany said enough is enough, that would be the end of FIFA.

But for that to happen, self interest needs to be put aside for the good of football.

Is there courage to do this? I hope there will be.....
 
if it came down to technical quality only, they might as well as just let the germans host it in perpetuity. After all they have the best combo of stadia, public transport, infrastructure, size of country, footballing culture, location, etc.
 
ah this part, yes.

I thought you meant if we'd have a radical redesign to the exterior (like what they are proposing for the camp nou) or the south stand built up to match the north.

I don't think the exterior'd be that important. And the Camp Nou has plans for a new roof and a third tier extension. Its Real's ground that has plans for a new facade. As for Old Trafford, the seats and isles are very small compared to new stadia that have been built recently.
 
The technical report also raises concerns that will be relevant at the time of the World Cup. Such as potential security threats to the Russian World Cup, the travel distances between stadiums and time differences for EU (main viewers of WCs) television times etc.

Unless the Russians have said they know they will quash the Chechnyans, shrink the size of their country and alter the flows of time, then those things are still relevant.

If FIFA don't give a shit about the feasibility and commercial realities of the world cups, and just take it to places that they would like them to be, then thats fine. Its just not very professional and its unfair to, frankly, superior bids that were overlooked in favor of taking football to new frontiers.

I would prefer an open and fair selection process where people actually consider how their decision will impact the players and the fans, rather than just make an arbitrary choice to go to a new place because its never been there. (being generous)
 
I don't think the exterior'd be that important. And the Camp Nou has plans for a new roof and a third tier extension. Its Real's ground that has plans for a new facade. As for Old Trafford, the seats and isles are very small compared to new stadia that have been built recently.

true, it certainly isn't as comfy as the allianz for instance, but I still think not many changes will happen this decade besides the corporate stuff as you suggest. I don't think we have the cash for it and we are not hosting anything major that would be an impetus for us to do something.
 
All of your replies do not take into account all of the points I mentioned. You are all like the FA, brainwashed into thinking we are so special when in actual fact we are not. Wake up people. All the FA care about is trying to make money and fuel themselves full of self importance.
Not one of you has mentioned the fact that our National School of Excellence at Burton has not been finished. This in itself is a disgraceful and shameful act of the FA and just shows where their loyalties are. To me though it is their disgusting approach to the coaching of young boys in the technical coaching for the future.
 
All of your replies do not take into account all of the points I mentioned. You are all like the FA, brainwashed into thinking we are so special when in actual fact we are not. Wake up people. All the FA care about is trying to make money and fuel themselves full of self importance.
Not one of you has mentioned the fact that our National School of Excellence at Burton has not been finished. This in itself is a disgraceful and shameful act of the FA and just shows where their loyalties are. To me though it is their disgusting approach to the coaching of young boys in the technical coaching for the future.

but I mentioned the lack of investment......

It's becoming quite clear to me that my posts are never read......

I bid you good day sir!
 
All of your replies do not take into account all of the points I mentioned. You are all like the FA, brainwashed into thinking we are so special when in actual fact we are not. Wake up people. All the FA care about is trying to make money and fuel themselves full of self importance.
Not one of you has mentioned the fact that our National School of Excellence at Burton has not been finished. This in itself is a disgraceful and shameful act of the FA and just shows where their loyalties are. To me though it is their disgusting approach to the coaching of young boys in the technical coaching for the future.

missed the point the second time??

I accept all you say about the FA..I'm not defending the FA. They are into money like every other FA. But that does not negate the fact England can hold a much...much better tournament that a country that is run by gangsters.
 
@UK Bob - how did you know that it had gone to Russia weeks ago? Not disbelieving, just interested...

It really is astonishing if that were the case. Irrespective of whether we think too much of ourselves, Fifa are a disgrace if they conducted this game of charades having already made the decision...
 
All of your replies do not take into account all of the points I mentioned. You are all like the FA, brainwashed into thinking we are so special when in actual fact we are not. Wake up people. All the FA care about is trying to make money and fuel themselves full of self importance.
Not one of you has mentioned the fact that our National School of Excellence at Burton has not been finished. This in itself is a disgraceful and shameful act of the FA and just shows where their loyalties are. To me though it is their disgusting approach to the coaching of young boys in the technical coaching for the future.

i agree what all that you have said mate. it would be better for resources to be spent on actually improving the standard of english footballers instead of pissing billions into host. As I noted in other posts, what you rather be: champions or hosts?
 
@UK Bob - how did you know that it had gone to Russia weeks ago? Not disbelieving, just interested...

It really is astonishing if that were the case. Irrespective of whether we think too much of ourselves, Fifa are a disgrace if they conducted this game of charades having already made the decision...

It's been expected for the last year.
 
missed the point the second time??

I accept all you say about the FA..I'm not defending the FA. They are into money like every other FA. But that does not negate the fact England can hold a much...much better tournament that a country that is run by gangsters.

Bob makes some good points, but he misses an important one: the talk of our bid being best wasn't fuelled only by us - their technical committee judged us to be pretty much the best all the way across the board...
 
i agree what all that you have said mate. it would be better for resources to be spent on actually improving the standard of english footballers instead of pissing billions into host. As I noted in other posts, what you rather be: champions or hosts?

Well as Germany hosted it recently what did you prefer, to be the hosts?
 
missed the point the second time??

I accept all you say about the FA..I'm not defending the FA. They are into money like every other FA. But that does not negate the fact England can hold a much...much better tournament that a country that is run by gangsters.
Can they? I expect they can but that does not negate what they DO NOT do for grass level football. They find millions to present a useless promotion and then plead poverty when it comes to investing in grass roots.
 
but I mentioned the lack of investment......

It's becoming quite clear to me that my posts are never read......

I bid you good day sir!
Oh FFS Gambit, I do read your posts and over the years have had nothing but respect for your comments and insights and you know that!
 
@UK Bob - how did you know that it had gone to Russia weeks ago? Not disbelieving, just interested...

It really is astonishing if that were the case. Irrespective of whether we think too much of ourselves, Fifa are a disgrace if they conducted this game of charades having already made the decision...
That's part of the reason why everyone is so angry.....not because we think we're "distinct and superior".
 
It's been expected for the last year.

Really? Well why the feck was everyone bothering to go through the motions?

I must say that I've never seen it reported that Russia were a shoo in, until about 5 minutes before the actual announcement. Had I seen that, I wouldn't have been arsed with the whole circus...
 
Oh FFS Gambit, I do read your posts and over the years have had nothing but respect for your comments and insights and you know that!

I just need reassurance is all. I'm a sensitive soul.
 
Really? Well why the feck was everyone bothering to go through the motions?

I must say that I've never seen it reported that Russia were a shoo in, until about 5 minutes before the actual announcement. Had I seen that, I wouldn't have been arsed with the whole circus...

Russia have been the favourites for a while. I have the same problem as to why bids can't be informed and drop out accordingly. We have less to complain about as opposed to the Aussies.
 
That's part of the reason why everyone is so angry.....not because we think we're "distinct and superior".

I was making two separate points.

The distinct and superior point was an attempt at an explanation as to why the rest of the world doesn't like us.

That doesn't excuse Fifa's bent way of operating.
 
Russia have been the favourites for a while. I have the same problem as to why bids can't be informed and drop out accordingly. We have less to complain about as opposed to the Aussies.

Favourites maybe, but never the shoo-in that you suggested.

The Aussies have reason to be peeved given the shocking standard of the competition. But I can see why we English are pissed off - we were rated as the best bid, BY FIFA!
 
Favourites maybe, but never the shoo-in that you suggested.

The Aussies have reason to be peeved given the shocking standard of the competition. But I can see why we English are pissed off - we were rated as the best bid, BY FIFA!

Yes but it was always between Spain and Russia. It's been obvious for a long time now. The Aussies have extra reason to be peeved, they wanted to drop out but were convinced by FIFA to stay in yet only got 1 vote.
 
Favourites maybe, but never the shoo-in that you suggested.

The Aussies have reason to be peeved given the shocking standard of the competition. But I can see why we English are pissed off - we were rated as the best bid, BY FIFA!
Jeeeezus wept Feed me, you believe that we were the best bid? They tell you that because you want to believe that, it's all part and parcel of the show. Russia had this sewn up months ago. The FA just put a show on to show the English people that we are "important".....we are NOT.
 
Jeeeezus wept Feed me, you believe that we were the best bid? They tell you that because you want to believe that, it's all part and parcel of the show. Russia had this sewn up months ago. The FA just put a show on to show the English people that we are "important".....we are NOT.

I think it's indisputable that we were coming with one of the best bids across the 2018 and 2022 shortlists. We've got virtually everything already in place. I don't think we needed the technical committee to tell us that in fairness.
 
I think it's indisputable that we were coming with one of the best bids across the 2018 and 2022 shortlists. We've got virtually everything already in place. I don't think we needed the technical committee to tell us that in fairness.
We didn't need the technical committee, rather the bank manager of RBS to tell us how much Russia paid!
 
All of your replies do not take into account all of the points I mentioned. You are all like the FA, brainwashed into thinking we are so special when in actual fact we are not. Wake up people. All the FA care about is trying to make money and fuel themselves full of self importance.
Not one of you has mentioned the fact that our National School of Excellence at Burton has not been finished. This in itself is a disgraceful and shameful act of the FA and just shows where their loyalties are. To me though it is their disgusting approach to the coaching of young boys in the technical coaching for the future.

How is the fact that Burton has not been built at all relevant to our bid to host the World Cup? In fact, if it was at all relevant then we could argue that it will be built for 8 years time... like they have done for all of the russian stadiums

I'm sure that FIFA really thought about youth coaching in Qatar when they got the World Cup.

All of the bids had areas of weakness, ours had less than others and this was set in stone by the technical report which seems to be completely irrelevant.

FIFAs own report said that our bid was the most feasible, I am complaining that a process that says that one bid is the best can translate to having the least votes.

Any process must be open and honest, if they wanted all along to take it to a new country and disregard ones that had hosted it previously then this should have been disclosed before we bid for it.

If the process was open but we were disregarded due to our medias role in uncovering corruption in FIFA, then the responsible reaction would not be to wait until the vote and say to the exco members to remember the media role and blame the bidding nation. They should have actually THANKED the media for uncovering corruption, but we know that would never happen...

I have never said that we were entitled to the world cup, the other nations would have done a fine job. However, it was determined that the Russian bid had more 'risk' than the other bids, plus had other factors like travel distances between stadiums, security threats and time zone problems and FIFA chose to ignore that for whatever reason.
Ironically there was just as much feeling of "entitlement" from the Russian bid because it was 'their turn'.

just to repeat:

If the World cup was going to country that had not previously hosted it, we should have been told before we bid.
If the process was open for us to win, then the actual 'meat' of the bid should have been considered and not disregarded by 19/22 exco members.
If we actually lost votes because FIFA didn't like that we have a free press that can criticise who they like then I will continue to have no respect for FIFA, but tbh I am glad I live in a country that has some freedom of the press and would rather have that than the World Cup.

Peace and Love.
 
I did not want this debate to get into the failures of the FA. That has been debated and I am the last person who has anything good to say about the FA.

The overall consideration about awarding a bid should be a country or countries that can host a good World Cup. After that the consideration of different continents/regions and countries should be considered.

In that respect Brazil with all the mess that is going on there should not have been awarded the Cup. Did FIFA ask any other country if they could host it?