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Whatever happens to England in South Africa, and whether or not the hurt of 44 years is finally assuaged on July 11, there has been one revolution in England’s national game that is undeniable.
And profound.
So Turkey narrowly failed in their efforts to upset France and win the right to host the 2016 European football championship.
Having come so close in Friday’s vote, I’m sure members of the Turkish bid team will need time to get over their disappointment.
But once they do, they can reflect that their efforts have secured an important legacy for Turkey: never again will a Turkish bid for any sports competition be taken lightly.
It was always going to be a close-run affair but you only needed to witness the relief on the faces of the victorious French delegation and the look of total despair on those of their Turkish rivals to understand just how agonising it was.
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It was just over a year ago that Sepp Blatter, President of FIFA, asked: where is English football’s Franz Beckenbauer?
This was just as FIFA was deciding that the rotation policy was dead and igniting England’s 2018 bid. Blatter’s tone suggested he knew the answer even as he phrased the question. There was no one.
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The moment of truth is fast approaching.
On Friday (May 28), 13 UEFA Executive Committee members will gather to select the host country of Euro 2016, the next but one European football championship, at Geneva’s Espace Hippomène.
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FA may stand for any number of things, apart from the Football Association, few of them printable, However in the light of recent events it seems they will stand for almost anything. Appointing 66-year-old Lord Triesman as an independent chairman has proved a ghastly mistake for he has underlined the adage that there is no fool like an old fool.
There is another adage too. As Shakespeare wrote, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” If indeed Melissa Jacobs,
Hours after the Triesman affair broke, a German colleague emailed me saying “bye bye England”.
It was an understandable response.
Under normal circumstances, FA Cup Final week should be about excitement, anticipation and gaining maximum publicity for all the right reasons.
But Portsmouth are no ordinary club as the last few months have starkly illustrated.
As you read this I am in Zurich about to undertake the unique privilege of handing England’s Bid Book for the 2018/22 World Cup’s to the President of FIFA Sepp Blatter.
This is an amazing honour for any English man or woman.
Does the 2009-2010 Premiership mark a season that heralds revolutionary change?
Or are the changes more cosmetic?
Sepp Blatter has always been insistent that football should control itself and not be run by politicians.
Yet the great irony is that he is the ultimate football politician, the man who could teach many a professional politician a trick or two.
England’s 2018 World Cup campaign team have been at great pains to highlight the progress that has been made since the dark days of football hooliganism that became known around the world as “the English disease”.
Football works best as a dictatorship, not a democracy.
You don’t have to take my word for it. Just ask Sir Alex Ferguson.
He was never happy with the Manchester United board when it was run as a plc. Indeed he refused to take up the shares when the club floated, although this may have reflected his deep socialist convictions of equal shares for all.
So is that it then?
Should Korea, Australia and other leading candidates to stage the 2022 World Cup quietly pack up their toys and go home?
A casual reader of FIFA President Joseph Blatter’s comments in Qatar at the weekend might be forgiven for thinking so.
The British have a great capacity to invent new sports. But, having got the world playing, they are very hostile to any change to the sports they have invented.
The British genius for sports has been well documented. The country may not be a sporting super-power but nearly all modern sports were either invented in this country or their laws codified here.
The problem arises when the sports the British have invented are changed,