So we lost the World Cup bid, unsurprisingly we did not even make the the final, looks like 1966 was the last time we got close to anything in terms of FIFA.
So the 2 Dave's, and Big Willy were not enough to convince the powerhouses from around the world to vote for us. How could they, and they promised too! The less famous Dave, said that "it clearly is not enough to have the best bid" well clearly! But did we have the best bid, we didn't win, must be a bit tricky for less famous Dave, what with him being less famous and not winning for once. Still it must be comfort for less famous Dave to hear what Sepp Blatter had to say...."football teaches us many lessons, one of the most important is losing." If only less famous had played association football as it was called at his school, he probably played hockey.
Famous Dave spoke about it all like he had just completed a tough FA Cup third round game, and lost to a plucky 2nd Division side (is it even called the second division anymore, perhaps this is why we did not win, as no one knows what our leagues are called anymore.) " I am very proud of the bid team, we did a great presentation, training went well but lets give credit to the Russians", alright I made up the last bit, but so predictable. Lots of sour grapes, lots of unhappy hurumphing, lots of unhappy famous people of various types, where was Lord Coe when you needed him.
Could it be that actually we made no effort to get along and develop long term relationships with FIFA, we just turned up with our "Amazing Bid" and expected to win. They do play football in Russia you know! There are flipping millions of them! In business we are constantly qualifying out of bidding processes, the reason is that we need to be in a position to have relationships with the customer before we actually feel like we can win. I am pretty sure we did not do this. Why do I think this? Well the response of Very Famous Boris (slightly more famous that less famous Dave) to cancel the hotel rooms and stay of the FIFA types at the 2012 Olympics shows the level of class we are operating within. It is exactly for this type of arrogance and ill will that people hate the English.......all stand for the national anthem...God Save our Gracious Queen........
