England's 2018 World Cup bid team keen to distance themselves from media investigations
The team behind England's bid to host the 2018 World Cup has written to FIFA in an attempt to distance themselves from the English media's investigations into FIFA.
In September, two Sunday Times reporters posed as American businessmen lobbying for the USA's bid to host the 2022 World Cup.
During a meeting with two members of FIFA's executive committee, the reporters were encouraged to invest up to £2million in football-related development projects in the officials' home countries.
It was allegedly implied that in return the officials, Amos Adamu and Reynald Temarii, would cast their votes for the American 2022 bid.
FIFA's ethics committee is currently completing its investigation into the conduct of the Adamu and Temarii and is due to publish its findings on Wednesday 17 November.
Expressing concern that the English press' conduct could damage the country's bid, David Dein and Geoff Thompson, the bid's international president and chairman respectively, wrote to FIFA in an attempt disassociate their campaign from the work of the English
press.
"It has been a difficult time for FIFA and as a member of the football family we naturally feel solidarity with you and your colleagues," Dein and Thompson said in the letter, which stressed that the bid team can have no say in how their country's media
operates. "We hope England's bid will not be judged negatively due to the activities of individual media organisations, regardless of one's view of their conduct. We hope you appreciate that we have no control over the British media."
Bid team: Panorama investigation partially outdated
The BBC's investigative TV programme Panorama is expected to air a documentary on FIFA on 29 November, three days before the executive committee will vote on which countries will host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
In their letter, Dein and Thompson emphasized that some of the Panorama investigation concerns old allegations that FIFA has already addressed.
"It is now public knowledge that we have made representations to the BBC regarding a forthcoming documentary they are planning. We are alerting you to fact that the programme appears in part to be raking over allegations some of which are up to 10-years-old
and have already been formally dealt with by FIFA and the Swiss courts."
The English team is competing with bids from Russia, Portugal/Spain and the Netherlands/Belgium to host the 2018 tournament.
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