World Cup
England Also Played ‘Dirty’ in 2018 World Cup Bid
It is getting increasingly difficult to get people who were clean during the controversial bids and double awards of the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Sports Village Square recalls that when the results of the bids were announced on December 2, 2010, it was the first and only time FIFA ever awarded two final competitions at the same time. The awards have a lot of casualties including almost the entire FIFA executive committee that was in place as at December 2010.
Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer, Chelsea owner, Abramovich among others have been embroiled in the World Cup award scandal.
Now, the English royal family and the former British Prime Minister, David Cameron have been cited in the scandal that is fast expanding. England failed in the bid for the 2018 World Cup. The released report has it that Prince William and the former Prime Minister, Cameron were at a meeting in which a vote –swapping deal between England and South Korea was discussed.
Cameron reportedly asked the South Korean delegation to support England’s bid, only to be told England would have to do the same for South Korea as it bid for the 2022 World Cup.
According to the Michael Garcia report, such a vote-swapping deal would have been in “violation of the anti-collusion rules”.
The report says Mr Cameron met FIFA vice-president Mong-Joon Chung (South Korea) in Prince William’s suite at a Zurich hotel the night before the vote for the 2018 hosting rights in December 2010.
“The Prime Minister asked Mr Chung to vote for England’s bid, and Mr Chung responded that he would if Mr (Geoff) Thompson (chairman of England’s bid) voted for Korea (to host the 2022 tournament),” the report claims.
England officials in charge of organising the country’s bid arranged jobs for the “adopted son” of FIFA vice-president Jack Warner at Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur (football clubs), and they were reportedly asked to engineer a meeting with the Queen for one FIFA official from South Africa. This official also raised the possibility of an honorary knighthood.
The report slams England’s attempt to court Warner, who was also president of North, Central American and Caribbean football, alleging officials considered twinning his hometown in Trinidad and Tobago with an English village.
In 2009 the English Football Association also covered the costs of the Trinidad and Tobago Under-20 team when it stayed in Sheffield.
“England 2018’s response shows an unfortunate willingness, time and again, to meet that expectation (of Mr Warner),” the report says.
England’s hopes of hosting the 2018 World Cup were ended swiftly when its bid received only two votes, knocking it out of contention in the first round.
The report states there was “conduct by England 2018 that may not have met the standards set out in the FCE (FIFA code of ethics) or the bid rules.
“In many cases England 2018 accommodated or at least attempted to satisfy, the improper requests made by these Executive Committee members.
“While the bidding process itself, and the attitude of entitlement and expectation demonstrated by certain Executive Committee members in the exchanges discussed in detail above, place the bid team in a difficult position that fact does not excuse all of the conduct.”
The first set of revelations from the so-called Garcia report painted a bleak picture of the background to the infamous 2010 vote that gave the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.
Garcia had resigned as head of FIFA’s investigatory body in December 2014 in protest after FIFA released a 40-page sanitised summary of his report which he disowned, describing it as “incomplete and erroneous”.
The full report referred to an array of suspect financial dealings including the sum of $2 million allegedly sent by a consultant for Qatar, Sandro Rosell, to the 10-year-old daughter of a FIFA official.
Garcia’s investigation also revealed that one former FIFA executive committee member thanked Qatar by mail for a transfer of several hundred thousand euros just after Qatar was awarded the 2022 tournament.
The report also documents that three executive members of FIFA were flown to Rio de Janeiro for a private party ahead of the vote to decide who would host the 2022 World Cup.
The World Cup that marks 100 years of the competition may be six years away, the jostle for the two key matches – the opening and the final – has turned a two horse race.
In all, there will be 104 matches. Morocco is jostling with Spain to host one of the two key matches.
Portugal is ruled out for either the opening or the final match as it has no stadium with capacity of over 65,000.
The biggest stadium in Portugal is Estádio do Sport Lisboa e Benfica.
Morocco on the other hand is planning on what will be the largest stadium in the world.
The Grand Casablanca Stadium is being designed to hold 115,000 spectators in its bowel.
According to Paris-based publication, Jeune Afrique, Casablanca is favoured to host the opening match.
Other countries besides the hosts are set to hold matches. Three matches will be held in South America – one in Montevideo, in Uruguay, where the first World Cup took place in 1930, one in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and another in Asuncion, Paraguay. The remaining 101 matches have yet to be allocated.
Sources close to the matter suggest that 20 stadiums (11 in Spain, 6 in Morocco, and 3 in Portugal) could host the World Cup matches.
Other countries besides the hosts are set to hold matches. Three matches will be held in South America – one in Montevideo, in Uruguay, where the first World Cup took place in 1930, one in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and another in Asuncion, Paraguay. The remaining 101 matches have yet to be allocated.
Morocco, on the other hand, has chosen six stadiums; Rabat, Fez, Agadir, Marrakech, Tangier, and the Grand Casablanca Stadium in Benslimane.
It is estimated that Morocco will host at least a third of the matches. we can roughly estimate that Morocco will have around a third of the 101 matches to be allocated, give or take,” a source close to the matter told Jeune Afrique.
A source quoted a Moroccan journalist, Nassim El Kerf as prefering the kingdom to host the opening match as it guarantees the featuring of Morocco instead of the final match in which the host country may not feature.
France are the last hosts to feature in a World Cup final in which they beat Brazil 3-0 in 1998. It is therefore impossible to know ahead of time if a host country will get to the final.
Exactly four months after they were bumped and relegated to the third-place match of the Africa Cup of Nations by the Super Eagles, South Africa’s Bafana Bafana are in jitters as they will come up against the three-time African champions again, in a crucial 2026 World Cup qualifying match in Uyo.
Only three days ago, the Super Falcons pushed the Banyana Banyana, reigning African champions, off the bus to this year’s Women’s Olympic Football Tournament, instead grabbing the ticket to make sure of a first appearance at the glamour tournament for the first time in 16 years.
The assured manner of Nigeria’s victories in the two fixtures have left the hierarchy of South African football flummoxed, and there is no adequate time to recover or rejig strategies before the Bafana Bafana come up against the Super Eagles in a Day 3 encounter of the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifying series at the Godswill Akpabio Stadium, Uyo on Friday, 7th June.
With two points from their previous two matches, but aware of the hold they have over the Bafana Bafana, the African vice champions are confident of the three points on the day, which could see them fly to the top of the pool.
It was on 7th February at the Stade de la Paix, Bouake that the Super Eagles kicked Bafana to the third-place match of the 34th Africa Cup of Nations. Despite achieving parity late in the game, the Bafana were cut to size during the penalty shootout with Nigeria’s South Africa-based goalkeeper Stanley Nwabali saving two of the kicks by the Bafana.
South Africans’ boasts of bouncing the Super Falcons in the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament fixture in revenge, ended belly-up with the Banyana failing to score a goal in 180 minutes of action, with the two teams separated by Rasheedat Ajibade’s goal from the penalty spot in Abuja on Friday, 5th April.
Despite being a point ahead of the Super Eagles in their World Cup qualifying group, the Bafana will fall behind once they submit to the superior strength, skill and savvy of the Super Eagles on another Friday in June.
It can be recalled that when the two teams also met at the Africa Cup of Nations in 2019, at the quarter-final stage, Nigeria triumphed 2-1 in Cairo.
Players of the Super Eagles are already getting in the mood to deliver the big punches to Bafana in Uyo in a few weeks’ time. Only on Thursday night, top striker Victor Boniface returned from the injury that kept him out of the AFCON, by coming off the bench to score in Bayer Leverkusen’s Europa League quarter-final duel with West Ham of England.
African Player of the Year Victor Osimhen has also been unable to stop scoring for his Italian Serie A side, SC Napoli.
Goalkeeper Nwabali remains in awesome shape, and midfielder Alex Iwobi and Ademola Lookman shone brightly in the defeat of Ghana in a friendly in Morocco last month.
There is no end to aspirations. That is what Morocco is doing as they planned the world’s largest stadium as one of their package for the milestone 2030 World Cup which marks the 100th year of the tournament.
A British firm, Populous has reportedly won the bid for the design of the what is called Morocco’s Grand Casablanca Stadium. It is being designed to hold 115,000 spectators in its bowel.
According to Populous in its website, the stadium derives its identity from the culture of the “season” in Morocco, as its structure is located under a large tent roof that appears as an exciting intervention in the forest landscape, noting that the stadium site extends over an area of 100 hectares in the city of Mansouria in the province of Benslimane (38 km north of Casablanca).
The British company explained that the stadium will be compatible with the FIFA standard. The company’s president, Francois Clément, said that the expected pace of construction “indicates the commitment of all parties concerned to deliver this project on time and within budget, and will constitute a rich asset for the Kingdom of Morocco, as well as raise it to the highest global platform for the development of sports infrastructure.”
The proposed stadium will compete with the Santiago Bernabeu and Camp Nou stadiums in Spain. Morocco is co-hosting the World Cup with Spain and Portugal Preparatory work has already begun to build the stadium on a 100-hectare site after funding for the project was approved last October.
According to the Morocco World News website, the budget for the new stadium project amounts to 5 billion Moroccan dirhams (460 million euros).
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