Time To Dump "The Bid" ?

[joggerjayne]

Surely we don't now seriously WANT the World Cup ?

We don't want anything to do with FIFA, do we ?

The UK Govt have told us that the World Cup will bring money into Britain. They have bandied around words like ... Tourism, Souvenirs, Visitors, Employment.

But ... it turns out that they have done NO calculations. Only the Dutch Govt have done any calculations, and they calculate that hosting a World Cup results in a HUGE loss.

As to bringing prosperity to the Nation ... all the money from South Africa was filtered back to Zurich ... no surprise there.

So ... let's forget the ridiculous myth about a World Cup being good for prosperity.

Hosting the World Cup will cost the UK 100's of £m's ... and we simply haven't got it.

Is it time to dump the bid, before Thursday's vote sets us off on a 7 year slide to national financial catastrophe ??

[joggerjayne]

Oh, sorry ... I forgot about the "prestige" of hosting the World Cup.

Football is, after all, one of England's prestige sports.

(Surely "international laughing stock"? ... Ed)

[x-ray]

I agree with what you say. After watching the Panorama programme last night I am even more convinced that the whole world cup fiasco is a complete sham and riddled with corruption.
Why on earth do we want to throw money away just to host the World Cup - or is that the only way we will qualify for the tournament.
I can only hope that we fail to get the vote and let some other country (Russia ?) to bear the cost and problems that go with it.

[johntywino]

They'll probably let us have it-out of spite!

[woofgang]

I was quite shocked when the spokesman for the UK bid committee said that he thought that Panorama's timing was poor...what he should have been saying is beside the scale of the alleged corruption, the UK's bid, indeed anyone's bid becomes irrelevant.

[joggerjayne]

All we would be doing, as hosts, is providing a channel for money to flow back to FIFA ...

... and the people who run FIFA !

The ludicrous myth that we will "make money" has been blown out of the water ...

... a surprising revelation that the Government has done NO calculations whatsoever, and the idea that we would benefit was total speculation.

I say ... back the Spain/Portugal bid.

Mind you ... if they host it, we will STILL end up paying for it, through their EU subsidies.

=0(

[sandyRoe]

It's an odd situation where we have to placate crooks in order to get their colleagues to agree to let us host a set of football matches.
Let the Russians have it.

[spitthedog]

The BBC program about fixing within FIFA may have done the damage, JJ, so not sure if we'll get it anyway.

[joggerjayne]

Sandy ...

Hosting some football matches ... !

Yes ... it's easy to forget just how dull the whole World Cup thing actually is !

[Davethedog]

Your right that it would cost 100's of £m's but it won't cost us anything because we already have the stadia, hotels and infrastructure to host it. As Terry Venables siad at the weekend, if we wanted we could host a world cup next weekend.

You are right about the profit and that is what is going to happen with the Olympics, however FIFA can only take ticket sales and TV rights everything else is ours.

However I think its mute to be honest if Quatar win the 2022 bid there is going to be a scism with some of the big players walking out of FIFA.

[woofgang]

JJ its worse than dull its torture!!! almost as bad as the Olympics will be

[joggerjayne]

Dave ...

Terry V may be exaggerating a teeny bit. If 32 countries all said ... "Right, we'll be there a week on Friday" ...

... you take my point?

Building the stadiums is a relatively small expense for the nation, because the clubs build them, and the FA just uses them, surely?

It's the administration and security ... the intangibles ... that take time and money (unless, as with the Olympics, everything has to be built from scratch).

[Vicasso]

I watched the BBC programme.
I don't know what the overall cost of making a bid is in terms of the manpower involved in costing, preparation, presentation, presentation materials, videos, visits, hospitality and the rest.
I do know that all of this is a complete waste if the final outcome is influenced by alleged, substantial palm greasing of those apparently answerable to no higher authority.

[joggerjayne]

Woof ...

I agree to some extent. I don't have high hopes for the London Olympics.

The Games should only go to a country who say ...

"We don't care what it costs ... we will throw as much money at it as necessary."

(like China, Australia, etc).

The UK's mistake was in thinking that it could be done on the cheap, because private investors would be queueing up to sponsor the project.

When the private investors failed to materialize, and the budget turned out to be laughably underestimated, who had to divi up to bail out the whole project? Yes, the taxpayers ... who are all struggling through a recession.

We should never have bid for the Olympics.

[Davethedog]

JJ yes I am being a bit simplistic however it wouldn't/shouldn't cost us humungous amounts. No stadia need to be built no hotels, need to be built.

Venables isn't far wrong just exagerating a little.

[joggerjayne]

Vicasso ... yes, the supposed "glamour" of the whole thing has somewhat faded, now we are seeing what the World Cup circus is really all about.

[joggerjayne]

Back in a bit ...

[Vicasso]

I agree with you JJ re the Olympic Games, I hoped Paris would get them on the basis of cost and that we are neighbouring time zones therefore offering convenient TV coverage.

[x-ray]

Not only host the games, we should not even enter the competition itself.and hopefully other countries would follow suit
Let the crooks at FIFA get nothing, although they probably wont care - the leaders have already pocketed millions for themselves