The AFR Team has its say on the curious cases of Qatar & Russia: England 2018 Frozen Out
The AFR Team has its say on the curious cases of Qatar & Russia: England 2018 Frozen Out
The AFR team is sharing its diverse perspectives on the drama that unfolded yesterday in Switzerland in a series of posts throughout the next day or so. The series features perspectives from our writers who call places like Montreal, Paris, Kuala Lumpur, Sydney, London, Manilla, Boston, and Lisbon home. We continue with the thoughts of Oliver Sparrow, a deflated England fan writing from London.
The tears have just about dried up, but the underlying feeling of deflation still persists. I was desperate for England to hold World Cup 2018, and despite the furore about the recent BBC Panorama programme and investigations into FIFA corruption by the British media, I still genuinely felt that England 2018 could have been a reality. How wrong I was.
With a measly two votes, England didn’t even make it past the first voting round. An incredibly polished performance from the likes of David Cameron, Beckham, Prince William and the quite brilliant Eddie Afekafe was widely rumoured to be a favourite of FIFA representatives, but it was not to be. Many expected it to be a straight shootout between Russia and England, but one can only imagine that factors beyond the England 2018 bid team’s control had derailed their campaign before they even started their pitch in Zurich yesterday.
(Source: philosofooty)
