Hours To Go Before 2018 World Cup Decision
8:30am UK, Thursday December 02, 2010
England will know this afternoon if it is to host the 2018 World Cup - or whether the long wait must go on before it can stage what many consider to be the Greatest Show On Earth.
Hours To Go Before 2018 World Cup Decision
8:30am UK, Thursday December 02, 2010
England will know this afternoon if it is to host the 2018 World Cup - or whether the long wait must go on before it can stage what many consider to be the Greatest Show On Earth.
The England bid - buoyed in the last couple of days by the presence of David Cameron, Prince William and David Beckham - will make a final push at Fifa HQ when a five-man presentation team will make its case one last time before the decision.
Those presentations must be "Oscar-winning", Lord Coe told Sky News. Coe believes this process is reminiscent of the scrap for the 2012 Olympics five years ago in Singapore.
England is bidding to put on the tournament for the first time in what will be 52 years, but it faces being beaten by Russia, or Spain and Portugal jointly. Another joint bid, by Holland and Belgium, seems unlikely to succeed.
Prince William with David Cameron and David Beckham
Failure would be a bitter pill to swallow since it would mean the earliest the World Cup could come to England would be in 2026.
Today will also provide the answer to who stages the tournament in 2022 from five other candidates who made their final presentations on Wednesday.
Before the arrival in Zurich of the Prime Minister, former England captain Beckham and Prince William, England's bid appeared to be faltering badly.
It was beset by the fallout of a Sunday Times investigation into the Fifa men who were due to make today's decision.
Two of them - Amos Adamu and Reynauld Temaari - were suspended as a result, leaving 22.
Of those 22, the reputations of four have been tarnished by allegations in a Panorama programme broadcast on Monday evening, though one - Issa Hayatou, of Cameroon - has threatened legal action against the documentary makers.
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