Cameron could score a goal by bringing the World Cup to Britain
Offering to host the tournament in 2018 or 2022 for minimal cost could help clean up the image of football
Cup different? The summer and winter Olympics are sporting eccentricities fit only for rich or dictatorial countries whose politicians have more vainglory than any sense of fiscal propriety. Football, on the other hand, is a global sport with a global following. Under Fifa the World Cup has become extravagant and corrupt, but that need not be the case.
London now has an opportunit y. With Fifa in crisis it could offer a conditional bid that would both cleanse the sport’s image and offer an economic baseline for future such events. It would be a British bid, not a London one, the minimal benefits from staging matches being spread nationwide. No new stadiums need be built. There are more than enough already. If any do not meet Fifa’s gold-plated standards, that is too bad.
The competition would be run on Britain’s terms, not Fifa’s. Britain’s FA should receive ticket and television revenue, distributing it to Fifa and others only when all expenses have been met . As a penance f or pas t misbehaviour, Fifa officials should pay their own hotel, limousine and “hospitality” bills.
The purpose of Britain hosting a World Cup would not be to boost the egos of Cameron, Johnson, the FA or anyone else. The purpose would be to show that such global festivals need not be extravagances that only rich countries can contemplate. Games should slot into the existing infrastructure of any modern country with venues to spare.
We might recall that this was the original prospectus of London’s 2012 Olympics. They were to be the “people’s Olympics”, with a budget of no more than £3 billion. The principle was sound: that sport should be about sport, not big construction, big marketing and associated racketeering. That was until Tony Blair, Tessa Jowell and Ken Livingstone saw stardust and seized the keys to the Treasury till.
Cameron is no friend of Russia’s. He has imposed any amount of boycotts and sanctions on Vladimir Putin, except the one he knows for sure would infuriate the Russian president. That is a boycott of Moscow’s 2018 World Cup, almost cer t ainly acquired by Fi f a corruption. The reason is Cameron fears the ire of football fans.
The Government has the chance to redeem this mild hypocrisy, and redeem its pressure on the media to conceal Fifa corruption in 2010. Cameron should propose a British boycott of Moscow 2018 and Qatar 2022, unless and until the 2010 vote is subject to independent audit. Instead he should offer a low-cost tournament in Britain in 2018 or 2022. He could prove to the world that these festivals of sport need not cost billions. He has nothing to lose and football has everything to gain.
With Fifa in crisis it could offer a bid that would both cleanse the sport’s image and offer an economic baseline for future such events