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By Lord Faulkner of Worcester - 26th July 2010
Lord Faulkner of Worcester writes for ePolitix.com ahead of his question on England’s bid for the 2018 World Cup.
England's bid to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup is now entering its critical final phase. In a little over five months' time we shall know whether all the hard work put in since October 2007 – when England's bid was first announced – has been successful.
The potential benefits that would flow from staging the competition are immense, not just for football and sport generally; in terms of economic regeneration, community cohesion and national pride, there is no other sporting event like it. An independent review by PriceWaterhouseCoopers calculates that the benefit would be an increase in GDP of £3.28bn. Some of the figures contained in England's bid book are staggering – potential ticket revenue of US$897m from the sale of three-and-a-half million tickets, investment of US$1.1bn in grassroots football facilities, one billion people to be reached worldwide by legacy programmes inspired by the World Cup, 700,000 in-stadium hospitality covers... and so on.
Critical to the success of England's bid is government backing. I have no reason to suppose that the coalition will be any less supportive than its Labour predecessor. Last December, all political parties signed up to the £300m of financial guarantees which are central to the bid. I want to give the new ministers the opportunity to confirm unequivocally that this is still their position, notwithstanding the current financial situation.
I shall also want an assurance that the FIFA inspection team which is currently visiting every country that is in contention will be given the opportunity to meet the most senior members of the government when they come here in August. An opportunity like this comes just once in a lifetime!
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