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World Cup lobbying frenzy

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-12-02 07:58

Five nations launch last-ditch attempts to win the right to host the 2022 soccer extravaganza

The scandal-tainted race for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups enters the home straight in Zurich on Wednesday as rival bids make formal presentations to voters with the crucial ballot just more than 24 hours away.

The five countries battling for the right to host the 2022 football extravaganza - Australia, the United States, South Korea, Japan and Qatar - will showcase their bids in presentations made at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich.

While the 2022 bidders prepare to make their final pitches, high-powered delegations from the countries slugging it out for the 2018 tournament will be engaging in frenzied last-minute lobbying.

Russia has emerged as the bookmakers favorite in the final days before Thursday's vote, pulling clear of England and a joint bid from Spain and Portugal. A Dutch-Belgian bid is regarded as a long-odds outsider.

England has traveled to Zurich with a heavyweight delegation led by Prime Minister David Cameron, heir to the throne Prince William and football icon David Beckham.

But English hopes have been rocked by a series of media reports alleging corruption within FIFA which are expected to trigger a backlash among the 22 FIFA executive committee members who will decide the vote.

A Sunday Times investigation in October snared two FIFA members apparently offering to sell their votes in exchange for cash. Both officials were later suspended by FIFA and will not take part in the vote.

On Monday, BBC documentary Panorama accused three more FIFA committee members of involvement in a decade-old corruption scandal.

A fourth FIFA member, Trinidadian official Jack Warner, seen as a key figure for English hopes, was accused by the program of trying to sell World Cup tickets on the black market.

Beckham said the British media coverage of FIFA had been discussed in a meeting with the football body's President Sepp Blatter on Tuesday, which also included Cameron and other bid leaders.

"What we made clear to him, and what he already knows, is that if we get the World Cup in 2018 our media is right behind us, our media is so positive towards the sport and towards it growing in our country," Beckham said.

While England's last-ditch lobbying effort is being spearheaded by Cameron, it remained unclear whether Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would arrive in Zurich for the final hours of campaigning.

A spokesman for Putin in Moscow said on Tuesday the Russian leader had a busy domestic agenda, but did not categorically rule out a trip to Switzerland.

FIFA's executive committee will cast votes in a series of ballots starting at 2:00 pm local time on Thursday (1300 GMT) until one bid has received an absolute majority.

Blatter has admitted that the decision to stage the votes for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments side by side - designed to maximize television revenues - was a mistake, making collusion between bidders inevitable.

Spain and Qatar are widely reported to have struck a deal aimed at securing votes in the 2018 and 2022 races, in breach of FIFA rules, although both sides have denied any such agreement.

While Russia has emerged as the narrow favorite in the 2018 race, the 2022 ballot has been harder to read, where the US, Australia, and Qatar are the front-runners ahead of Japan and South Korea.

Most observers believe a victory for either Japan or South Korea is highly unlikely given that the countries hosted the event in 2002.

The favourites are believed to be the United States and Australia, with Qatar emerging as a genuine threat.

Agence France-Presse