'Be wary of 2018 World Cup bid arrogance,' says Caborn
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Your support makes all the difference.England should be wary of being perceived as "arrogant" in their campaign to land the 2018 World Cup, according to the bid ambassador Richard Caborn. The failed bid for the 2006 finals was not helped by suggestions that it was England's 'right' to host the tournament but Caborn said lessons have been learned for the new campaign.
Caborn said: "We've learned not to presume, and not to be arrogant, and to make sure we use our bid to be much more pro-active rather than reactive. We also have learned to use it not just as a tournament but as a force for good for young people."
London won the right to host the 2012 Olympics by impressing the International Olympic Committee with regard to the legacy the Games would leave to sport, and Caborn said England should be sending out the same message for the 2018 World Cup.
He added: "I think we can bring to Fifa a message that says in partnership we could do a lot more than just a tournament, to connect young people back into sport through the power of football."
Fifa opened the way for an England bid by abandoning rotation of the tournament between the continents and Caborn said that he could understand why the system had been in place. "I think the aim of the rotation system was a laudable one," he said.
"I said to [Fifa president] Sepp Blatter that it was a very courageous move to take the cup to Africa in 2010 (when South Africa will host) and I'm hopeful it will leave a very positive legacy as it will in South America in 2014 (in Brazil).
"But then I think it will have served its purpose and that is the reason they have broken the rotation – it has done what it had set out to do and now it goes back to being open to bids from the rest of the world."
Caborn also added his voice for cost controls on footballers' wages. Caborn's successor as sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe caused uproar two weeks ago by declaring John Terry's £130,000-a-week salary as "obscene". Caborn said: "Huge television revenues are now washing through into wages and that is something football ought to look at. There ought to be some relationship between income and expenditure."
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