England’s 2018 bid must beware the Russians

Much though I love David Beckham and Sepp Blatter, I’m not sure that I want the 2018 World Cup hosted in England
Rod Liddle

Much though I love David Beckham and Sepp Blatter, I’m not sure that I want the 2018 World Cup hosted in England. The last time we hosted anything, the Germans won and then took out full page adverts in the broadsheets to remind us that they had done so, making condescending comments about how nicely we had organised everything, danke schön and guten tag, immer uber alles etc. It was the ultimate in national humiliation, being thanked by the krauts for running a tournament that they breezed in and won. It left me feeling how the Greeks must be feeling right now, as if there must surely be a higher justice in the world to which one might appeal when the Germans hove into view. They weren’t even very good, the Germans in 1996; just sort of ineluctable, as ever.

Last week Beckham handed the bid for 2018 to the incorruptible and likeable Fifa president Blatter, who then had a call from a British citizen, a certain David Cameron, claiming to be the Prime Minister, and pledging his support — and presumably that of the Liberal Democrats — for 2018. Blatter smiled it all away. He has admitted our bid is impressive but you suspect there is the whiff of bigger money in his nostrils.

When it comes to hosting large sporting events, those at the front of the queue tend to be emerging authoritarian states newly acquainted with the market system and still in the possession of nuclear weapons. Both China and Russia have, to varying degrees, the economic growth and potential long stymied by a bereft and witless political ideology, one that ensured they were pariahs for 70-odd years. Now, they can turn to administrators of our major sports and insist “this is what we need in order to join the rest of you, to become properly democratic, to be part of the family of nations”.

The same was true, to a slightly more complex degree, and without the nukes, with South Africa and the forthcoming tournament, for which Fifa is continuing to bail out this semi-failed state, presumably at everyone else’s expense. Vladimir Putin’s bid for Russia for 2018 is simply that it is the only country in the running for 2018 for whom the World Cup might “transform” their nation.

The World Cup will not actually “transform” England, merely make us hugely annoyed that the Germans have won it again and pour a few quid into the pockets of hoteliers and the big brewery chains. And possibly contribute towards our bankruptcy and sad procession, cap in hand, towards the IMF a few years hence, as happened with Greece.

This is the point; true democracies find it far more difficult to whip up the funds for these prestige projects, to guarantee the enormous amounts of funds demanded by the sports administrators. But by the same token, I am not sure exactly what Vlad means by “transform”. Will fewer oppositional journalists be executed? Will the oligarchs be kept in check? Putin is less forthcoming about this sort of stuff and you suspect the only thing that really matters, in the end, is the promise of raw cash. Even if it does mean teams in Group A playing games in Dzerzhinsk with the players glowing slightly from the plutonium residue.

There are two other main rival bids England need to see off. We have the upper hand in both cases because they are no less obviously liberal democracies than we are. It is true that in the case of Spain and Portugal democracy has been established for only the last 35 years, rather than a hundred or so in the rest of western Europe. But these two countries, more usually divided by carping envy and spite, will carry with them the votes of the Fifa South American delegation, which may be crucial.

I don’t know who is going to be voting for us, as everybody seems to hate England except maybe Norway and Micronesia. Spain and Portugal would be an attractive option for travelling fans, so long as a close eye is kept on the kids. Both countries have experienced something of a footballing renaissance of late, too. Both may also be bankrupt by the time the bids are finalised and capable of building nothing more than a take-away tortilla stall by the side of a parched acre of scrub previously used for stabbing bulls.

Then there is the joint bid by the Dutch and Belgians, which was flagged up as the environmentally friendly pitch, having Ruud Gullit et al cycling through the streets to deliver their prospectus to Herr Blatter. The fact that Belgium may not exist within five years may count against them, not to mention that female supporters of Islamic nations will be rounded up and bunged in prison if they dare to wear a burqa in public.

I have little doubt that England would most likely put on the best tournament, given the wide profusion of football grounds. But my guess is that Fifa will go for Russia, for reasons which are explicable only if you forget football altogether and look a little wider, at how things are these days.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/columnists/rod_liddle/article7127762.ece