Bad news for England

[coltrane]

One other member voted for the England bid apart from ourselves, this just goes to show the ineptitude of the Fifa membership, are they seriously asking us to believe that Russia deserve to host the World Cup more than ourselves? I hope that the 2018 World Cup is a complete shambles and that the programme for building venues is a complete failure, and that anyone who attends gets mugged or kidnapped by the Russian Mafia who in fact run the country in the first place. But I'm not bitter at all as you can no doubt tell! :x

[diamond_scot]

From the outside looking in, it was obvious England were never going to win. When all is said and done, the rest of the world just doesn't like the UK (and hence England) at the moment. From politics to banks to journalists to arrogance, there are enough non-football reasons alone in the minds of the representatives at FIFA not to choose England.

Would I like England to host it? Yes
Does England currently have (Bernabeu / Nou Camp excepted) the best grounds in the world? Yes
The most football history in the world? Yes

But is the UK REALLY disliked globally? YES, unfortunately, and it contributed greatly to the vote....

[coltrane]

If England is really as disliked as you suggest then why does the vast majority of the world speak English even if it is not their first language and why do millions of foreigners aspire to live here and in fact millions visit as tourists. How many tourists does Russia get each year and how many would want to live there? They are corrupt and Fifa is corrupt that is the only reason why they won the bid.

[diamond_scot]

English is the number one language for business, science, the internet etc. because American's speak English. Nowadays it has very little to do with us, other than the fact we colonised America many years back and we remain some sort of global business and science presence.

Corrupt is probably going too far, far more likely it's just due the individual delegates deciding that it would be anyone other than England....

And to be fair they should have just said that no one who has hosted before will host these times and just be done with it. It would have saved a lot of bother. I probably feel more sorry for Australia as I think they would have hosted a great world cup in 2022 and will almost certainly have to wait until 2040-something now with the rotation policy.

[coltrane]

Thanks for the history lesson, as long as you see the reason for England being robbed by Fifa's cheats then that's alright.

[Mad Dog]

English is the number one language for business, science, the internet etc. because American's speak English. Nowadays it has very little to do with us, other than the fact we colonised America many years back and we remain some sort of global business and science presence.

Corrupt is probably going too far, far more likely it's just due the individual delegates deciding that it would be anyone other than England....

And to be fair they should have just said that no one who has hosted before will host these times and just be done with it. It would have saved a lot of bother. I probably feel more sorry for Australia as I think they would have hosted a great world cup in 2022 and will almost certainly have to wait until 2040-something now with the rotation policy.

Agreed. Qatar are going to be tearing down most of the stadiums that they're going to build and sell them off anyway. Australia's league is growing at the moment, and it would have been great for them to host the World Cup.