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In one corner of the room in one of Switzerland’s plushest hotels, the unmistakable figure of Chuck Blazer, FIFA’s Tweeting Executive Committee member, holds court.
On the other side of a large Christmas tree, a Boys’ Own triumvirate of David Beckham, Gary Lineker and Fabio Capello cluster around a small coffee table.
Nearby, English Premier League boss Richard Scudamore has been doing his bit, engaging the Asian Football Confederation chairman and Qatari ExCo member Mohamed Bin Hammam in earnest conversation for quite some time.
Elsewhere, a Korean gentleman chats in Spanish with Guatemala’s Rafael Salguero, who is wearing his navy FIFA Executive Committee member’s blazer.
Salguero later walks over to have his picture taken with Morgan Freeman, the Academy Award-winning actor, who is adding star quality to the United States bid along with Bill Clinton, the former President.
At a small table by a pillar, two more ExCo members, South Korea’s Chung Mong Joon, a noted FIFA power broker, and Ricardo Teixeira of Brazil, the country that will host the next World Cup in 2014, are engrossed in conversation.
Every time a new group enters the room, scores of heads turn discreetly in their direction, all the time assessing who is talking to whom and the clues this might hold as to the outcome of the next day’s critical votes.
Football Federation Australia President Frank Lowy is briefly in evidence near Mr Blazer’s table, but does not stay long.
When at one point Ángel María Villar Llona, the Spain/Portugal bid’s one-man walking campaign, rolls in brandishing a large cigar, the head-turning is particularly noticeable.
Wednesday afternoon’s presentations by the 2022 bid teams were all very well.
But it was in this bar at Zurich’s Baur Au Lac hotel on Wednesday night that the real battle for two of the biggest prizes in world sport was being waged.
Actually, that is not quite true.
The real battle was being waged in the plush suites upstairs where Dr Chung had had an audience with the hard-working Prince William of Wales prior to his tête-à-tête with Mr Teixeira.
It was here out of the public eye that the likes of David Cameron, the UK Prime Minister, and I would think the Emir of Qatar and Mr Clinton – but not Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a most notable absentee – were according ExCo members the sort of ‘face-time’ bid leaders were hoping would prove critical in delivering their votes.
To we students of international sports politics and sundry other hangers-on, it all made for a night of compelling theatre.
But how much will these shared intimacies count for when ExCo members gather to deliver their verdict?
As I write this, surrounded by up to 1,000 members of the international media, in a cavernous press centre in snowy Oerliken on Thursday morning, we have about six hours to wait before we find out.
David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2010 World Cup. Owen’s Twitter feed can be accessed at www.twitter.com/dodo938