martes, 5 de julio de 2011

GettyImages England's bid for the 2018 World Cup received just two votes - ESPN

A report from the culture, media and sport committee has called for a full review into what went wrong with England's 2018 World Cup bid, suggesting that the Football Association had failed to learn lessons from the past.

The committee, comprised of MPs, pinpointed the FA's relationship with UEFA and FIFA as areas that were lacking in the bid.

The report states: "England's bid team appears to have lacked a number of the components of a successful bid. Lessons did not appear to have been learned from previous studies with regard to the composition and unity of the bid team, and the messages it needed to project. "More fundamentally, it appears that the groundwork for a successful bid had not been laid effectively with football's international bodies."

Committee member Damian Collins added: "There was 15 million FA money and more than 2 million public money from local authorities spent on the bid. The public have a right to know if this money was spent well. "FIFA have been contemptuous and dismissive of the allegations raised in this inquiry and there is no appetite to have a proper investigation."

Indeed, the committee lambasted FIFA's handling of the bribery and corruption claims in the lead-up to the vote. The report backed the content and timing of BBC's Panorama programme, saying it was "amply justified by the public interest in FIFA's governance and, more generally, in independent and impartial journalism."

"FIFA has given every impression of wishing to sweep all allegations of misconduct under the carpet and of dismissing anyone bringing allegations to them with an approach bordering on contempt."

Former England 2018 bid leader Lord Triesman made allegations of unethical behaviour against four FIFA members, which led to the FA commissioning barrister James Dingemans to investigate evidence to back up the claims.

FIFA said there was no evidence found by Dingemans to support further action, but the committee disputes this.

"We find this response disappointing and inadequate," the report says. "While the review does not confirm the allegations made by Lord Triesman, neither does it refute them. It does find enough corroborative evidence to merit further investigation."

"As a first step towards restoring confidence we call upon FIFA to publish the ethics committee report."

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