After the announcement by the President of FIFA that the 2018 World Cup had been adjudicated to Russia - with Qatar designated the host nation in 2022 – all the delegates of the losing bids were disappointed but little had the same post vote angst and recrimination evident from the English media. In Spain the media understood the financial horsepower and resources behind the Russian offering and seemed to accept their fate – with disappointment of course - but knowing they had secured the seven votes they had been promised.
For England the fact that the bid never passed the first round and secured only two votes – one of which was certainly the former FA Chairman and FIFA Vice President Geoff Thompson – is alarming in so far as the horse trading suggested a higher count to Prime Minister David Cameron and David Beckham. Clearly they were way off the mark based on what we know now and at this level – with such high stakes poker in flux - any positive indications by anyone pre-vote is meaningless and counts for nothing. This time the usual health warnings have been shown once again to be most reliable yardstick rather any nods or winks in the corridors of a Zurich hotel.
It is all not surprisingly as there is much money at stake with a bid – stadium construction contracts, ticket sales; corporate hospitality, TV rights, other broadcast rights, merchandising and so on. A few meetings in downtown Zurich were never going to prove enough to sway such important decisions. Indeed, only for the collapse of International Sports Leisure [ISL] in 2001 - FIFA's exclusive marketing partner - the financial value of the World Cup, which for years had only been a wild guess, was finally exposed when ISL went into liquidation owing more than 450 million Euros to creditors.
The most telling moment however on the England bid came during the final announcement ceremony when Sepp Blatter regaled how football was actually invented in China – ad-libbing a little known gem of history – and an insult of sorts.
Funnily enough the Spain-Portugal bid team thought they had enough votes in the bag to get close – which they did - only eliminated when unable to garner more votes in the last stage. Although the media have noted the loss they have moved on to La Liga on Friday reporting on Real Madrid’s effort to restore normal service for the visit of Valencia – following the trauma of their 90 minutes at Camp Nou last Monday night – with Barcelona meanwhile playing Osasuna – where they arrive as La Liga leaders for the first time this season.
Meanwhile back in Qatar the race to start their building programme must get underway in earnest in order to get nine of the eleven stadia needed for the event in twelve years time. Although the Qatari’s were not seemingly as surprised by their selection as the rest of the world, FIFA are happy to continue with their vision of bringing the event to new territories - albeit on this occasion to somewhere the size of Manchester.
The latest story now being that the World Cup that year could be moved to winter time – to avoid the high summer temperatures.
The view the days before the vote was that England had “eight votes” with the Holland Belgium bid the first to be eliminated. So the surprise maybe was that the Dutch - Belgium bid was worthy of a second round and with the stature of Johan Cruyff involved and Franz Beckenbauer on the FIFA Executive Committee their bid was never going to be mistreated in the footballing geo-politik of such legendary players.
And maybe that is the key.
Football and FIFA are ultra conservative in nature and the sight of past legends may matter more than the modern day footballers – who are more bling – compared to the nostalgic work ethic of the latter day heroes. Therefore on their barometer the commercial brand that is David Beckham might not have been of enough stature to carry votes in the hallowed halls of Zurich. Especially in comparison to the Kaiser – Franz Beckenbauer - who after all was Chairman of the 2006 Organising Committee when he brought the tournament home to Germany.
In terms of the Russian proposal it clearly seems - with hindsight - to have been a leading candidate from early on and the decision of their President Vladimir Putin not to travel for the presentation was more an optical decoy than first appeared. If, as alleged, the names of both winners were known before the announcements – even via Twitter - then Putin was boarding his jet in Moscow even before Mr Blatter had finished the ceremony
In terms of exerting influence Franz Beckenbauer remains a dominant figure in the sport even today, and perhaps has done so ever since he stepped into the footballing world during the 1996 World Cup. Against that backdrop there was little favour even Beckham could bend if Franz was not on board with the England bid - even with royalty taking part in their bidding.
In an environment where FIFA officials value their own fiefdoms with equal prestige the presence of Prince William may have held little sway and was probably matched in FIFA’s view by the eminences from Qatar. Unlike the Olympic bid where Seb Coe had spent years in the IOC corridors of power – a la Beckenbauer – the English presence at FIFA HQ is low and as the game has expanded the legacy of where football was invented matters less and less.
For Josep Blatter the vision for FIFA is that football should go to new territories - which clearly ruled out the European bidders straight away. Although the vision on occasions has gone against perceived wisdom of football lovers as far back as USA 1994, followed by Korea and Japan in 2002 and then South Africa in 2010 – the vision continues. Even if during the alternate years it was all counter balanced with more traditional venues such as France in 1998 and Germany in 2006.
In 1982 Joao Havelange, the previous FIFA President, extended the tournament to 24 teams from 16 in Spain and as the game expanded the footprint of football came to include African nations - Egypt, Morocco, South Africa and Libya - Tunisia in the mix for the 2010 tournament that was to include 32 teams. When Sepp Blatter announced on 15th May 2004 that South Africa was the winner - having narrowly failed to win the right to host the 2006 event - the event would see six countries appearing in the tournaments with Algeria, Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, the Ivory Coast and the host nation all hoping to challenge for the title. But in the end it was not to be.
Whether the event in South Africa was a success is still open to still debate and given the event was supported by €3.5bn spend by the host country that some argue should have been spent on other things.
In the aftermath of the 2010 final Franz Beckenbauer summarised his views in the following manner.
“The stadiums are the best in the whole world, some of them they are brand new and setting a new standard for stadiums. All together the atmosphere, the fans, the stadiums, the infrastructure, they couldn't be better.”
“It is always the same, each country has a different character. Germany was criticised in the beginning. People said, ‘we believe the Germans can organise well, but they are not warm-hearted, they will not take care of the atmosphere’ but the result was a fantastic World Cup
The whole world was celebrating and it is the same here. The next World Cup in 2014 in Brazil - there will always be someone who criticises them, but the reality is different.”
Franz Beckenbauer may not be royalty but he is footballing aristocracy and his views still count these days. If he was not supporting the England bid then there was no real chance as the German’s CV also shows that he is rarely on the losing side
He may have found it harder though to say no to Sir Bobby Charlton however?
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