Beckham to present England's WC bid to FIFA

By foxsports
Published

England's World Cup bid team will be relying on David Beckham's star quality to dazzle FIFA when it hands over its official documents on Friday.

While an Achilles' injury has ended the Los Angles Galaxy midfielder's hopes of playing at another World Cup this June, he will be leading the bid delegation to FIFA headquarters in Zurich as they try to win England the right to host the 2018 tournament.

"The great thing about David is that if he suddenly appeared in any village on the planet, everyone would know who he was," Football Association chairman David Triesman said Monday. "People love seeing him and he will play a leading role in the presentation of the book."

Each country vying to host the 2018 or 2022 World Cups will hand over bid books containing technical details on Friday, with England's taking up almost 1,800 pages.

Technical inspections of all the countries are due between July and September, and the final vote by FIFA's 24-man executive committee is on Dec. 2.

England's bid hasn't been helped by criticism of the Wembley Stadium pitch, with another new playing surface being laid last month - the 11th since the rebuilt home of English football opened in 2007.

With several FIFA executive committee members expected for the FA Cup final on Saturday between Chelsea and Portsmouth, the bid team will hope problems with the slippery, uneven field have been eradicated.

"We knew how to get a good pitch, (but) it slipped, it went backward," Triesman said. "We shouldn't have let this happen and we will have an exceptional pitch. We should never let the lesson slip and we won't ... whatever the peculiarities of the microclimate there we can do it."

One of the FIFA members England must persuade to vote for them is Worawi Makudi of Thailand.

And on Monday, England announced it will play Thailand, which is coached by former captain Bryan Robson, for the first time in June 2011.

Officially, the match is to celebrate the 65th anniversary of King Bhumibol's accession to the Thai throne.

Before the FIFA vote, Triesman also hopes president Sepp Blatter will be able to make an official visit to England to meet whoever emerges as prime minister following Britain's deadlocked general election.

As well as England, Australia, Russia and the United States, plus joint bids from Spain-Portugal and Belgium-Netherlands are competing to host either 2018 or 2022. Japan, Qatar and South Korea will concentrate on 2022, believing Europe is favored for 2018.