Cruyff absence cannot dent Holland-Belgium confidence after World Cup inspection visit

By Andrew Warshaw

August 13 – Dutch and Belgian bid officials believe their so-called “World Coaches legacy programme” will be the key factor that could persuade FIFA to grant them the 2018 World Cup.

As the five-man FIFA inspection team prepared to move on to Russia for the second of Europe’s 2018 candidates, the Holland/Belgium team claim they left no stone unturned in an effort to pull off a famous victory and win the right to stage the tournament in eight years’ time.

Despite being rank outsiders and considered no-hopers in some quarters, the Benelux neighbours insist they are on course to springing arguably the greatest ever upset in football politics when Sepp Blatter opens the envelope on December 2 to reveal where the 2018 tournament will go.

Chilean Football Association President Harold Mayne-Nicholls, head of the FIFA delegation, once again said all the right things at the end of the visit, just as he did when visiting Asian contenders for 2022.

But little touches - such as launching a football clinic for 50 youngsters - went down a storm and Mayne-Nicholls made a point of stressing how special it was coming to two of the founding members of FIFA.

“We thought some of the detail he mentioned was different to what he had said in the past,” said bid spokesman Frans van der Grint.

“We got the sense that they were particular impressed by our world coaches legacy programme which will have trained 6,000 coaches by the time of the 2018 World Cup.

“Mr Nicholls said it would be a big help to Chile which certainly gave us a positive signal.”

The programme supports the education and development of coaches and other key figures within clubs throughout developing countries, focussing not only on football skills, coaching and organisation, but also on the development of life skills.

Although Dutch legend Johan Cruyff was conspicuous by his absence during the four-day FIFA visit, Grint believes it will have made little difference.

“No doubt the other candidates can do a very good job but we believe our chances have definitely increased as a result of the FIFA visit,” he said.

“We think we are a step closer.”

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