We have to exceed expectations to win admits England 2018 chief

By Andrew Warshaw in Manchester

August 26 - Andy Anson (pictured), the chief executive of England’s 2018 World Cup bid team says the last three months of lobbying will be even more important than the four-day visit just conducted by FIFA’s technical inspection team.

As the FIFA delegation flew out of Manchester to prepare for their next stop - the joint Spanish-Portuguese bid - Anson said there was still a lot of hard work to do to ensure the World Cup returning to England for the first time in over half a century.

“We’ve got 98 days to convince the 24 FIFA [Executive Committee] members and will be spending a lot of that time with individual members,” said Anson whose team are expected to make further presentations at football conferences in London and Zurich over the coming weeks.

“We are going to have to put our case forward very strongly.

“This is where the campaign really starts hotting up.”

FIFA votes in Zurich on December 2 for the hosts of both the 2018 and 2022 World Cup and the inspection team will complete their reports into all nine candidate countries by the end of October.

Anson was clearly delighted with the positive comments of Harold Mayne-Nicholls, the Chilean head of the six-man FIFA team who heaped praise on England’s bid in his closing remarks.

“We achieved what we set out to do,” Anson told a news conference here.

“They got the message that football is in our DNA.

“The visit was a significant milestone along the path but it’s only one milestone.

“We have to work very hard to convince the FIFA Executive Committee that we deserve and can earn the right to bring the World Cup to England.”

Reacting to Mayne-Nicholls’ veiled request that more emphasis be placed on accommodation, Anson said details around contracted hotels would be submitted to FIFA by the end of September.

“They need 60,000 rooms signed up and we are working with all major hotel chains in the country,” he said.

With Russia strongly playing the new frontier and legacy cards and Spain-Portugal lurking dangerously in the wings with the three South American votes virtually in the bag, Anson admits that despite the global popularity of English football, his campaign has no room for complacency in order to clinch victory.

“Everyone knows we’ve got a strong technical case but we have to be better than everyone else,” he said.

“We’ve had to go beyond FIFA’s expectations.”

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