Man Utd CEO Comments on England 2018 Campaign; Oz Soccer Chief Promotes Bid in Asia

(WFI) Manchester United CEO David Gill says England's 2018 World Cup bid is back on track after criticism from FIFA vice president Jack Warner led to a streamlining of the board.

His comments came just hours before Premier League chairman Dave Richards resigned from the board on Tuesday.

Warner slammed England 2018 last month for its lack of diversity, direction and star names.

Gill, whose role on the bid board was downsized to an advisory role in the reshuffle, had claimed earlier today that a revamp of the board had resolved the issues.

"There have been some well publicised issues with the structure and everyone on the board felt, to move it forward and to get to grips with the situation, we should streamline the board,” Gill told Reuters.

"I think some of the issues he [Warner] made have been addressed by the streamlining of the board. The board now is much tighter and much more cohesive."

Gill was speaking during a visit to the Asian Football Confederation in Kuala Lumpur. He is part of a delegation meeting with Asian Football Confederation chiefs, which includes Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore and former Chelsea CEO Peter Kenyon.

He said England 2018’s well publicised issues over funding had not helped the campaign. The British government has only offered a $4 million loan to the bid, which had been seeking $8 million towards the $25 million cost of the bid effort.

Gill emphasized the billions in economic benefits of hosting a World Cup in England, adding that it was a low-risk bid: "The cost of bidding, yes it is a lot of money but it is small when you consider what the ultimate prize is."

"FIFA can have confidence that the grounds are there, they know that they have all of the stadia there.”

WFI understands that Gill and other members of the English football delegation met with several members of the FIFA executive at the AFC meetings, including the confederation’s president Mohamed Bin Hammam, Junji Ogura of Japan and Thailand’s Worawi Makudi.

England faces competition from Australia, Holland-Belgium, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, Spain-Portugal, Qatar, South Korea and U.S. in the bid race for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

FIFA's Executive Committee will select the 2018 and 2022 host nations in December 2010.

Australia bid

Australian PM Kevin Rudd with Sepp Blatter and FFA chair Frank Lowy at FIFA headquarters in July (Getty Images)

chief spreads message in Asia
The leader of Australia’s World Cup bid says staging the tournament in his country would be more commercially attractive than holding the FIFA showpiece in other parts of the world.

Football Federation Australia chairman Frank Lowy said: “Australia being part of Asia can mean that FIFA can potentially generate greater revenues over time.

“Current FIFA partners already have significant Asian revenues. This is a consequence of the enormous population base and continuing growth in the region. Asia is home to two-thirds of the world’s population, and is expected to be four times the combined population of developed western economies by 2020.”

Lowy’s comments came at the International Football Arena conference in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday.

He also urged football leaders to maximize the potential of the sport offered by the huge economic growth in Asia. “Not only is Asia the centre of the future of the world’s economy, but it is also the centre of the future of world football,” he said.

“A FIFA World Cup in the Asian region would secure the future of football in the region as well as give FIFA and its commercial partners the opportunity to generate maximum revenues,” he told delegates.

Of the 10 bids in the race for the 2018/2022 World Cups, there are rival Asian bids from Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and Qatar.

Lowy stressed Australia’s experience in hosting international sports events, including the Olympics in Sydney and Melbourne and rugby and cricket World Cups and underlined the quality of its stadia infrastructure to support the country’s World Cup bid.

Warner support for U.S. bid
CONCACAF, football's regional governing body for North and Central America and the Caribbean, has backed the U.S. bid to host the World Cup in 2018 or 2022.

"The United States can count on the full support of CONCACAF, including Chuck Blazer, Rafael Salgueiro and myself," the confederation’s president Jack Warner said Monday, following a meeting of the executive committee.

Warner, a FIFA vice president, is a member of FIFA's 24-man executive which will decide the destination of the 2018 and 2022 tournaments in December 2010.

Executive Committee member and U.S. Soccer Federation president Sunil Gulati gave a presentation on the key aspects of the bid at the meeting, which included a video and slide-show presentation.

Mutko resigns as Russian football chief
Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko stepped down as president of the Russian Football Union as expected today.

Mutko, who is leading the Russian World Cup bid, announced he would be quitting the post last week following a directive from President Dmitry Medvedev that all sports federations must be run by full-time professionals.

Mutko's deputy, 83-year-old Nikita Simonian, will serve as interim chief until Feb. 3 when a new president will be elected at the RFU’s general assembly, the football federation announced today.

Sergei Kapkov, a parliament member and vice president of the RFU, is tipped as the most likely candidate to be voted in as the federation's new president.

Written by Mark Bisson

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