Karren Brady remains optimistic that England’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup can still be successful.
England 2018 has admitted the separate investigations into Fifa by The Sunday Times and Panorama regarding alleged corruption in the bidding process could have a detrimental effect on their campaign.
England were formerly favourites to be named as hosts on 2nd December but have reportedly slipped down to third behind Russia and a joint bid between Spain and Portugal.
However West Ham vice-chairman Brady, a member of the bid team, is confident England have done enough to win the vote.
Hopeful
“I think if you look at the Olympics, no-one thought London would get the Olympics and they did,” Brady told Sky Sports News.
“It’s all in the vote. We expect the bids to be judged on sporting merit, and we have a technically great bid.
“I think that these things are always judged on the atmosphere, the temperature and what’s going on in and around the bid. But you never really know until the votes are in.
“We also have an awful lot to offer football in terms of our infrastructure, in terms of our coaching, in terms of the fact that the Premier League is the best-watched league in the world.
“All of those things, we think, will extend the power of football across the world.”
Brady is certain England will fare well in Fifa’s inspection report, which is due to be published on Wednesday.
“We really do have a really vigorous and professional bid team,” she added.
“We’ve done all the lobbying that we can, we’ve put all the things in place that we can and I think the inspection report will be really strong.”
Allegations
Brady has called on Fifa’s executive committee to base their decision on the content of the bid and to not be swayed by media allegations.
“What we can’t measure is the effect that some of the stories that are not led by the bid team will have,” said Brady.
“We equally accept that if there are allegations of wrongdoing around the voting, there should be an investigation into that.
“What we’re asking is very, very simple – please judge our bid on its sporting merits. And we think in that respect we’ll be very strong indeed.”
