World Cup 2018 post bid reactions: England officials flared up at FIFA’s decision
England had been taken as favourite for World Cup 2018 host in pre – bid media speculations followed by David Beckham, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Prince William as campaign drivers. This had been so fantastic until BBC aired a program on corruption
investigations in which some FIFA officials were involved in bribe and one official held responsible for buying World Cup tickets to sell touts. The investigations turned out to be a nightmare for England that changed everything overnight.
According to the source, four of the FIFA officials gave their word to Prince William and Prime Minister David Cameron to support England in the World Cup 2018 bid, while one FIFA member promised England 2018 bid chairman, Geoff Thompson, to vote for England
which did not happen. The promises were broken and the result was catastrophic for England, where Russia stormed the voting and won World Cup 2018 bid marginally. Andy Anson, Chief Executive of England 2018 also felt betrayed by the world governing body. He
said, “England doesn’t see any world cup coming home until FIFA change their processes for selections. This doesn’t seem to happen and the next event is going to Antarctica with heated stadiums.” Anson’s statement, if carefully analyzed, pointed to
Qatar’s desserts with roasting heat to be barred by air conditioned arenas. Roger Burden, Chairman Football Association (FA), also stands down for the amount of mistrust between FIFA and England officials followed by a flood of public statements against the
decisions. Burden also criticized the FIFA’s decision of World Cup 2022 going to Qatar, saying Qatar lags far behind in the technical and human strength, lack of infrastructure and so on. He expressed his opinion on the FIFA official’s promises to Prince William
and David Cameron by saying, “I am pretty concerned about what FIFA did that specifically. FA’s responsibility is to liaise with FIFA and I want nothing more to do with them especially when one promises to Prime Minister and future King of England and
then not keeping their word.”
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