England's World Cup fiasco and the 13 members of FIFA that the bid chief said were 'buyable'
UPDATED: 01:14, 5 December 2010
On Monday, January 11, this year, a dinner party was held in a private room of the InterContinental hotel in Mayfair. Among those present were a couple of senior civil servants, a representative of the Cabinet Office, three or four journalists and the leading members of the England World Cup 2018 bid team.
When the meal was over, there was a discussion about the prospects of the bid. The chief executive, Andy Anson, was asked about rumours of corruption among the FIFA executive committee who would decide England's fate.
We expected him to mumble evasive platitudes and we were unprepared for his devastating candour. He said that he and his team had given the matter much thought and they had concluded that, of the 24 voting members, 'at least 13 are buyable'.
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Watching brief: Andy Anson (right) with David Beckham and Lord Coe
His colleagues coughed loudly and fixed him with incinerating glares. Somebody explained that the notion of 'buying' delegates had never crossed English minds. Anson realised the import of his remark and started to retract. Later, we were spun the line that things had been said which could easily be taken the wrong way.
Nobody really thought anybody at FIFA was 'buyable'. Perish the thought. It has been a great evening. Time to move on. On the way home, I thought about Anson's indiscretion. How did he know which members were 'buyable'? What kind of research had they done to reach such a conclusion? Had the matter been raised with FIFA's so-called 'ethics committee'?
And which nation was most likely to 'buy' them? If these people were so blatantly for sale, then somebody must be preparing to pay their price.
Something else crossed my mind, something genuinely shocking: if this allegation was to be made public, then the bid would be dead in the water.
Imagine how FIFA might greet the news that the chief executive of one of the leading contenders had flatly asserted that a clear majority of their electoral college was potentially corrupt.
And imagine how the members might react when Anson and his colleagues came seeking their votes. The entire project would have been instantly abandoned at a price of £15 million, plus a daunting if unquantifiable cost to national pride and sporting self-respect. Aware of the stakes, we swallowed hard and respected the confidence.
We 'moved on'. The conversations had been conducted on an off-therecord basis and that agreement was honoured by the media representatives present that evening.
In truth, the ensuing months brought some difficult dilemmas. Why were Anson and his chums making such bold forecasts of success in a race which, deep down, they knew to be fixed? Why were they allowing England to take part in a rigged contest?
And why were they prostrating themselves before these preposterous people when they so clearly believed that all the relevant riders had been nobbled? It seemed not only nonsensical but actually dishonourable.
And yet, we had consented to secrecy and we kept the bargain.Enlarge
Heartbreak: Sepp Blatter reveals Russia's 2018 success
Then, in the final weeks before the vote, significant developments emerged. The Sunday Times, keen rivals of this newspaper, conducted a meticulous investigation which established that two members had attempted to sell their votes.
So convincing were the findings that both members were suspended. Instead of celebrating this triumph, the England bid team wrote a wretchedly humiliating letter to FIFA, in which they distanced themselves from the revelations and referred to the suspended rascals as 'our friends'.
Then came Panorama, which the England bid feared and dreaded as a boat-rocking, truth-telling exercise. Anson declared that the BBC had 'embarrassed themselves'. He condemned the Corporation for being 'sensationalist' and 'unpatriotic' before he had actually seen the programme.
I watched it in the half-light of a Brisbane dawn. It was overly dramatic yet stunningly effective. Its charges of corruption and profiteering were solid and serious and they reached the upper slopes of the organisation. Anson's attempts to belittle them said far more about the English bid than they did about the BBC's accusations.
Because he was not surprised. Not really. He knew, or believed he knew, that 'at least 13 are buyable'.
Yet there was a protocol to be observed, a tawdry fiction to be played out. So tug the forelock, bend the knee and smear the messengers.
If you were searching for a word to describe the strategy, then 'contemptible' might suffice.
And the real sadness is that the bid was terrific. By every conceivable measure, England had earned the right to stage the tournament. Forget all other considerations; this is the land where football was born and where it is most dearly cherished. This is the country which would have done it justice.
It was never given the chance. Instead, we had Vladimir Putin lecturing us on Press freedom, an experience bizarre beyond satire. We had David Beckham speaking eloquently and poignantly in a cause long since lost.
We had apparently experienced canvassers throwing up their hands in naive alarm when they discovered that Jack Warner, of Trinidad, was deeply duplicitous. And, even worse than the selection of mob-run Russia, we had Qatar chosen as hosts for 2022. Qatar: it is like playing a Test series in Dodge City.
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Winners: Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Emir of Qatar, left, and Sheika Mozah woman Nasser al-Misned hold the World Cup trophy
Qatar: a medieval emirate with a despicable record on human rights and an average July high of 115 degrees Fahrenheit. And oil revenues. Squillions of oil money, which played absolutely no part in FIFA's deliberations.
If it were not such a farce, it would be a grave scandal. Yet this is the club which England was so shabbily desperate to join.
There are many things wrong with our national game and this may be a chance for some intelligent scrutiny. The fact that the Premier League were not conspicuously disappointed by England's failure to win the bid should not escape notice.
That bloated, crony-ridden association of corporate chancers have routinely enriched themselves at the expense of the sport. Sweeping reform is overdue.
Similarly at the FA; cowed by the Premier League, plagued by timeservers and incapable of providing the game with the guidance it requires. The Sports Minister, Hugh Robertson, wants the FA to be run by independent executives. It should not be an aspiration but a demand.
Then there is the quality of the individuals who hold such sway yet deliver so little. Geoff Thompson, risibly anonymous when he chaired the FA, is currently our representative at FIFA. Is he really the best we can do? And 'Sir' Dave Richards; a man of miniscule talent, thinly spread. Is there another country which would tolerate somebody so utterly unsuited to high office?
But we do and we should not. And neither should we tolerate the self-serving myths which these people seek to spread. I return to the wretched Anson, as he seeks to excuse his own ineptitude.
'This is not an excuse at all,' he told a Press conference after the vote. 'What they (FIFA) are saying to us is that our media killed us. I don't believe that. I don't believe it for one minute. In the last week, FIFA executive members are saying to us that our media is killing us. That's not our words, by the way.'
It is pathetic, timorous, self-deluding drivel from a man who privately believes that 13 FIFA voters were 'buyable'.
It is bad enough that we lost, far worse that we so lightly shed integrity and self-respect. That is why I break his confidence and publish his deception. I have no regrets. I doubt that Andy Anson could make a similar claim.
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