FIFA crisis: England demands refund of £21m World Cup bid money

The FA are to ex­amine their legal position after sus­pended FIFA president Sepp Blatter sensation­ally claimed the venues for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups were fixed before voting. The 79-year-old made his extraordinary al­legation during a long interview with Russian news service TASS. He said the 2018 World Cup was lined up for Russia and the 2022 tournament was meant to go to the USA — until UEFA’s Michel Platini derailed the plan by taking votes to Qatar.
It now appears the FA spent £21million, including £2.5m from the public purse, on a 2018 bid that was doomed from the start.
On top of that, Prince William and Prime Minister David Cam­eron were put in the embarrassing position of lobbying for last-minute support in Zurich five years ago, only for Eng­land’s bid to attract just two votes.
The FA said they would launch a full in­quiry following Blatter’s comments on Wednes­day.
Chairman Greg Dyke, asked by a Culture, Media and Sport select committee if he would sue FIFA, replied: ‘If this turns out to be a rigged bid, we shall recover our money. It would not be unreasonable to ask for our money back. It would be very nice to get taxpayers’ money back.”
‘We will ask questions about what Blatter has said. He may just say he was misrepresented or mistranslated. But we will go back and ask FIFA and we will talk to our lawyers. It’s unchart­ed territory.’

SUN