England's stadiums cannot be beaten claims Anson

By Andrew Warshaw

December 17 – England 2018 bid chief Andy Anson insists the stadiums selected to host the World Cup in nine years’ time will not suffer the same fate as the ill-fated 2006 campaign.

As reaction, both positive and negative, poured in from across the country to the 17 potential venues in 12 towns and cities named yesterday, Anson says there is no chance of FIFA taking a dim view of the facilities being offered.

For 2006, FIFA inspectors rated England’s grounds below those of both Germany and South Africa, a key reason why the bid gained such little support.

FIFA will be back to inspect again in August next year but this time, says Anson, they cannot fail to be impressed.

“It will be hard for anyone else to match the mixture of excitement and depth of quality of our stadia,” he said.

“So many changes have happened since then.

“Our stadia have moved on to a whole new level so I’m confident we will have a very successful inspection.

“We’ve got a fantastic mix of some great historic stadia and some exciting potential new builds.

“It’s important that by the time FIFA come over we have enough bricks and mortar to see how good our stadiums are.”

Each of the 12 cities will have to contribute £250,000 to the cost of the bid, starting at the beginning of the tax year in April, whether or not England are successful.

Anson is confident the bid will manage to secure the £15 million needed for the campaign to be a success, including a £2.5 million loan from the British government.

He revealed that only Old Trafford, Wembley and the Olympic Stadium – if it is kept at 80,000 seats – would have the capacity to host semi-finals.

But although many of the stadiums selected are currently below FIFA requirements in terms of capacity, Anson said all of them would be temporarily increased in size for the World Cup – and some, including Milton Keynes, could stay that way permanently.

Crucially, none of the new stadiums being planned depend on England winning the bid in December next year.

Cities like Bristol and Plymouth are going ahead anyway as stand-alone investments regardless of whether they have a top-ranked team on the pitch.

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