By Andrew Warshaw in Zurich
December 2 – England’s 2018 World Cup bid team rolled out their big guns to make a final plea to FIFA here today but it was a 27-year-old from a disadvantaged background who made the most poignant impression.
Eddie Afekafe (pictured left), who works for Manchester City’s football in the community programme, outshone both Prince William and Prime Minister David Cameron as England tried everything to persuade enough FIFA voters to get them over the line ahead of the announcement later in the day.
Afekafe spoke of how football had stopped him going off the rails without any direction and had changed his life.
“I grew up in one of the roughest parts of Manchester – most of the people I went to school with were in gangs,” he said.
“Many still are, and some ended up in, prison.
“What I got and they didn’t get was an opportunity that came through football.”
Getting Afekafe to anchor their 30-minute presentation was a savvy move by England’s bid team in an attempt to pull at the heart strings of FIFA voters.
They provided just the right mix of speakers, with Afekafe also joined by the likes of David Beckham who has done as much as anyone throughout the campaign to charm the members of FIFA’s Executive Committee.
Critics will point to the fact that England’s display was not nearly as powerful as their Olympic presentation that snared the 2012 Games for London from under the noses of Paris and Madrid.
England certainly had a hard act to follow, their address following that of rivals Spain whose bid chief Angel-Maria Villa Llona made a point of massaging the egos of his fellow Executive Committee members.
Prince William was applauded by the 22-man Executive Committee before the English presentation but only after they were prompted by FIFA President Sepp Blatter.
Building on Afekafe’s introduction, the Prince said: “England 2018 and FIFA together have the opportunity to create thousands of more opportunities for people like Eddie.
“It’s a supremely powerful force for binding people together.”
Beckham drew on memories of his grandad who died exactly a year ago just before Beckham took part in the South African World Cup draw in Cape Town.
Beckham said: “Now I want to do something that will make my grandad proud.
“Our dream is to stage a World Cup that benefits billions, that makes you, your grandchildren and everyone in football truly proud.”
England’s performance may not have achieved the Oscar-style marks of the 2012 address but it played to its strengths of fan passion, legacy and top-class facilities and deliberately included several glowing references to FIFA made by bid chief executive officer Andy Anson.
While no-one can predict its ultimate impact, Blatter seemed to be impressed.
The FIFA boss has to go through the motions of thanking each candidate but he summed up England’s effort as “excellent and remarkable”.
How much anyone should read into that cannot be estimated – not yet at least.
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