Triesman’s time on 2018 bid is up (From The Northern Echo)

Triesman’s time on 2018 bid is up

9:47am Friday 13th November 2009

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ENGLAND boasts some of the best football stadia in the world, a fanbase that is both passionate and multicultural, a heritage that enables the country to call itself the “motherland of football” and a market place that appeals to the sponsors and broadcasters who keep the World Cup bandwagon rolling.

It has not hosted the world’s biggest football tournament since 1966, and when it comes to the bidding race to host the competition in 2018, is up against Spain, Portugal, Russia and Australia, countries that should struggle to make a compelling case for taking it elsewhere.

Throw in the global reach of England’s Premier League, and you should be able to put a monkey in charge of the bidding team and still be guaranteed a successful conclusion.

Sadly, instead of a monkey, we have a cabal of politicians, and in the six months since England’s bid was officially launched at Wembley in May, they have done their best to reduce the likelihood of football coming home.

The sporting opportunity of a lifetime is being lost amid a mishmash of incompetence, incoherence and incomplete promises.

Two men in particular have serious questions to answer after a disastrous couple of months that have seen influential FIFA vicepresident Jack Warner return a £230 handbag that had been offered as a gift to his wife and senior FIFA figures line up to criticise England’s bid for a perceived lack of leadership.

Gordon Brown is the first man in the firing line.

Whereas his predecessor, Tony Blair, was a vocal and visible supporter of the London Olympic bid, the current Prime Minister has been both aloof and obstructive.

Having initially pledged to hand over £5m to help meet the £15m cost of financing the bid, the Government have now reduced their commitment to a £2.5m loan.

That might sound like a lot, but in an era when Government-funded banks are still handing out million-pound bonuses to their senior employees, it is a drop in the ocean compared to the £3.2bn that the FA estimates could be generated by an English World Cup.

Understandably, FIFA like to know that a bid has unqualified Government backing. Vladimir Putin has promised to underwrite the entire cost of staging the tournament from the Russian Government coffers. Increasingly, Brown seems to be suggesting that, from an English perspective, the World Cup might be one major sporting event too far.

The soaring budget for London 2012 is clearly at the forefront of his thinking, but for all that the Olympic organisers talk of ‘spreading the benefits of the Games’, the Olympics are extremely London-centric.

The World Cup would be a truly national event, and speak to sports fans in Sunderland, Swindon or Sheffield, and they will quickly tell you which event would have a greater impact on their own life.

The Prime Minister needs to appreciate just how important a World Cup can be in terms of uniting and enthusing a nation. If he can’t, then everybody else might as well pack in now.

And speaking of packing in, there is surely a case for Lord Triesman standing aside from his current position as chairman of the 2018 bid team.

Triesman, a career politician who made his name as the General Secretary of the Association of University Teachers’ trade union, is supposed to be the man who is travelling the world to press the flesh with the 24 members of FIFA’s executive committee who will vote on England’s bid.

Instead, he is still spending three-fifths of his week working in his other position as FA chairman.

FIFA delegates can meet him, but only on a Monday or Thursday afternoon.

And even if they manage to squeeze themselves into his diary, who would want to talk football with a paidup politician anyway?

Germany’s 2006 bid team was led by two-time World Cup winner Franz Beckenbauer. England’s boasts the former Parliamentary Under- Secretary of State for the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills.

Triesman’s lightweight status has become a major problem – as evinced by the emergency meeting of the bid team that was convened yesterday – and the changes that were made at board level yesterday are not enough to change the overall direction of the bid.

Change is needed at the very top and just as the entire face of London’s Olympic bid changed when it changed the identity of its chairman, so the World Cup bid has now reached its own ‘Cassani moment’.

In May 2004, Barbara Cassani handed over the chairmanship of the London 2012 bid team to Olympic legend Lord Coe, claiming the latter’s track record in the sporting world was more important than her own technical and managerial experience.

It proved a crucial decision, and the same is now true of England 2018.

Triesman’s experience in the political world is meaningless when it comes to wooing the 24 executivecommittee members, and while trotting out David Beckham every now and then might sprinkle an occasional burst of stardust over England’s efforts, the 2018 team needs a big-hitting footballing figure working full-time to generate momentum.

Who that should be is the £3.2bn question, but my recommendation would be Sir Bobby Charlton.

The Manchester United link might not be to everyone’s cup of tea, but the World Cup winner is a bone fide footballing great who has spent more than a decade working in football administration.

He is a figure who is recognised throughout the world, and his Old Trafford connections would also help bridge the gap that has appeared between the FA, who will benefit from the bid if it is successful, and the Premier League, whose clubs would have to give up their grounds to host the matches.

Charlton should be football’s Lord Coe.

Otherwise, England’s bid will fail under the stewardship of the hapless Lord Triesman.

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