2010 SAFWC

David Beckham leads a cast of football giants in a new film to boost England’s chances of hosting the World Cup in 2018, ahead of this week’s decision.

The film showcases the bid’s proposals for a ‘Football United’, a global fund for football, which FIFA President Sepp Blatter has already backed.

Bid vice-president Beckham is joined in the video by a host of fellow English and international footballers ‘united’ behind the proposal.

They include England captains Rio Ferdinand and Steven Gerrard, Ghana stars Michael Essien and Asamoah Gyan, Honduran midfielder, Wilson Palacios and Brazilian defender, Alex.

The film shows coaching sessions in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean – the type of which Football United says it would fund.

And it includes players like Fernando Torres and Nani who believe England is the country of choice for leading footballers from other countries.

England 2018 chief executive Andy Anson said: “Football United will aim to match FIFA’s current annual investment in grassroots football and social development to reach one billion people and benefit each of FIFA’s 208 member associations.

“We believe our Football United proposals can benefit a generation of people around the world because we have all of English football behind it.”

New allegations of corruption have arisen just days before FIFA executive committee members are due to vote on football’s World Cup hosts in 2018 and 2022, Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung reported.

The newspaper said a list of FIFA officials who have taken “millions in payments” is circulating.

“There are many names from postbox companies,” an anonymous Swiss resident who has seen the list told the newspaper, which explained that some FIFA executive committee members are hiding behind these companies.

The newspaper added that a well-known member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is also on the list.

The fresh allegations come just a week after FIFA’s fledging ethics body slapped unprecedented one to three year suspensions on two executive committee members over misconduct or bribery on November 18, sidelining them from voting.

The scandal triggered by undercover newspaper reporters revived memories of influence-peddling at world football’s governing body stretching back to the 1990s. Ethics committee chief Claudio Sulser had described the affair as damaging.

Australia says that making sure visiting fans enjoy themselves will be a priority if it is awarded the right to host the 2022 World Cup.

Frank Lowy, who is leading the Australian bid, said that his country had been inspired to enter the race by what he saw in Germany in 2006, when fan festivals and a party atmosphere transformed the image of the country.

“When I was in Germany and we took part in the World Cup, we got to the last 16 and I thought Australia could do the same in terms of getting the fans involved,” he said five days before FIFA chooses the hosts in Zurich.

“I think our World Cup, if I may use that terminology optimistically, will be a different World Cup, I think it will be good for football and it will be a wonderful World Cup for visitors.”

“We know how to do these kinds of things,” he added, pointing to Australia’s success in organising previous events such as the Olympic Games and Rugby World Cup.

“It’s a sporting nation, Australia is very-well organised, is very welcoming to visitors, and we are a multicultural society now, 70 or 80 nations live in Australia harmoniously.”

If Australia win the bidding, Lowy has alledgedly promised the nation a whole stack of reebok coupon codes – with the Nike subsidiary set to become a prominent sponsor.

SO you thought the Sydney Olympics was a big deal? By the end of this week, Australia might be preparing for something that blows the 2000 Games out of the water.

In the small hours of Friday morning (AEST) Australians will discover whether a two and a half year campaign, led by the inexhaustible Westfield chairman Frank Lowy, has convinced soccer’s world governing body to let us host the 2022 World Cup.

It was seen as the impossible dream and yet Australia goes into the final days of lobbying and cajoling with quiet confidence. Even Lowy though will be smitten with nerves as the final decision approaches – there really is that much at stake.

Two economic analyses, by independent consultants, drive home the magnitude of the decision.

Economic forecaster IBIS World believes a World Cup here would be worth some $36 billion – in adjusted terms four times what the 2000 Olympics was to the Australian economy.
Clearly it has to be bigger, as a national event, but on every scale the numbers are exponentially higher.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, the international consultancy firm, produced a forecast predicting a $5.3bn boost to Australian GDP, and the creation of 74,000 jobs.

What about TV audiences? They reached 4.7 billion for the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and 3.6 billion in Sydney 2000.

The past two World Cups, by contrast, were watched by 26.3 billion people (Germany 2006) and 40 billion for South Africa 2010.

But all of that is, of course, irrelevant if the executive committee (ExCo) of soccer’s governing body FIFA doesn’t plump for Australia later this week.

When this all began in 2008 Australia was a relative minnow in terms of soccer’s geopolitics – evidenced by the fact that of the nine bidders for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments, we are the only one without a delegate on the 24-man ExCo.

That is why the government committed more than $45m of public funding to the bid, allowing both a massive international lobbying campaign and also the employment of consultants with access to the game’s powerbrokers.

Arsenal midfielder Andrei Arshavin insists that he loves to play football in England, but that a World Cup held in Russia would leave a “human legacy” that would last for generations.

Arshavin, who is the captain of the Russian national team, claims ‘it is my duty to support the development of football throughout my country’ and as an ambassador for the Russian 2018 bid, maintains that his country would benefit more from the hosting the event than any of their rivals, including England.

‘We have never had a World Cup,’ Arshavin wrote on Goal.com. ‘Hosting it here would open up new minds and new hearts for the game. It would be a completely new chapter for the FIFA World Cup itself.

‘Secondly, it would galvanise our game at every level. For me as a footballer, the grassroots game, coaching and education, training opportunities and of course stadiums, play a pivotal role in the sport.

‘Russia is a huge country, the biggest on earth. Everything is extra-large, including the organisation of the game, which, by the way is the No.1 sport in our country. With the support of the government, $1 billion (£638,000) will be invested into grassroots and football development by 2015, as well as into football for women, beach soccer and programmes for handicapped players.

‘We are building pitches, football centres, schools and training sites in the most remote areas of our country, growing the game and providing opportunities for the next generations. We are training coaches and other specialists, and working hard to modernise the infrastructure of our top leagues.

‘Last but not least we are building stadiums fit for the biggest competition on earth. It has been said that a huge effort is being needed. It is already underway, as can be seen in my native Saint Petersburg with the new stadium that will be finished by late 2012, or in Kazan, Sochi and elsewhere.’