DEFLATION?

Yes.

Disappointment ? Undoubtedly.

Disbelief?

When it comes to FIFA, it’s best not to regard anything as too much of a surprise.

The World Cup will not be coming to England in 2018, and the recriminations into what went wrong are already well and truly underway.

Did an early lack of leadership and direction set the bid campaign off on the wrong foot? Is England still regarded as something of a pariah in the international footballing community thanks to its colonial past?

Were the repeated media investigations into FIFA’s dealings simply too much for the executive committee to take?

Undoubtedly, mistakes were made. Early infighting between the Football Association, the Premier League and various branches of Government created a climate of confusion that took the best part of a year to eradicate.

The Lord Triesman affair, which first brought suggestions of collusion and impropriety into the public domain, infuriated influential FIFA members, and their anger was hardly assuaged by the subsequent revelations exposed by The Sunday Times and BBC’s Panorama.

Panorama, in particular, was badly misjudged, revisiting decade-old issues just three days before the FIFA membership assembled to cast their vote.

The exposure of corruption and bribery is to be commended – but too much of this week’s show felt like a rehashed and futile attempt at sensationalism.

Yet as the dust begins to settle, it is impossible not to turn away from perceived failings in the English bid and instead divert attention towards the archaic, tainted system that decides where the most popular sporting competition in the world takes place.

It might feel like a small consolation this morning, but perhaps English football can use yesterday’s events as the catalyst for an overhaul of FIFA and the processes it uses to exert almost complete control over world football.

It will not be an easy transformation to enact – the vested interests, as we have learned to our cost, are much too strong for that – but if a new, more transparent governing body can be created, the prize for future generations will surely be greater than the temporary thrill of hosting a World Cup finals.

The charge, at this stage, will be one of sour grapes.

Parts of Russia’s bid were superior to England’s, most notably when it came to leaving a legacy for the domestic game and taking the power and influence of a World Cup to a part of the world it has never touched before.

But was England’s bid really so bad that it deserved to pick up just two votes in the first round of voting?

Not according to FIFA’s own technical committee it wasn’t, as after months of exhaustive research and testing, they unanimously declared that England’s bid was superior to that of its rivals.

The stadia were repeatedly praised for being largely constructed and fit for purpose. The geographical spread of the host cities and the quality of the transport links connecting them were described as “ideal”.

England’s record for hosting successful sporting events was interpreted as proof that a successful World Cup could be delivered.

So if the bid wasn’t to blame, what was? To paraphrase a famous slogan from a different vote, ‘It’s the politics stupid’.

World Cup hosts aren’t chosen because of technical issues – they’re selected via a murky mix of personal preferences, backroom dealings and reciprocal scratching of backs.

You wouldn’t run a country that way – or at least not one that took any pride in calling itself democratic – and you certainly wouldn’t get away with running a not-forprofit organisation in this country with the same lack of transparency and accountability that FIFA regularly shrug off as part of their statutes.

Yet for all the grumbling and accusations, all the irregular payments and trade-offs in exchange for votes, Sepp Blatter and his cronies will carry on unaffected.

They will continue to hide behind a wall of obfuscation and silence, despite the fact their organisation boasts a budget commensurate with that of most developing countries.

Subsequent World Cup votes will continue to be determined by who you know and what you can trade, rather than the merits of what your country can offer to the world game.

And the notion of an ‘ethics committee’ will continue to be a laughable attempt to suggest positive action, while simultaneously providing grounds to justify the continuation of the status quo.

Can change be enacted while Blatter remains in charge? It is highly unlikely. But Geoff Thompson, England’s only member of FIFA’s executive committee, could begin by resigning his position until a new, enforceable set of rules and regulations was put in place.

Instead of burying their head in the sand, the Football Association could make a public statement expressing their disgust at the alleged impropriety that has dogged the bidding process.

FIFA’s power-brokers clearly don’t like England, so it is high time we stopped cosying up to them.

It looks like we’re never going to be their favourite sons, so why don’t we start being their nosy neighbour, forever criticising and challenging unacceptable conduct.

Without a World Cup bid to worry about, English football now finds itself free to speak its mind.

Wouldn’t it be great if we spent the run up to the 2018 World Cup talking about all the things FIFA does not want to hear?