England 2018 bid team reveal host city choices
The England bid team has revealed their 12 city choices to represent the country in their bid to stage the 2018 World Cup.
Derby, Hull and Leicester were the three unlucky cities to miss out as Milton Keynes inclusion was the big news coming from the announcement. Although still not guaranteed to host matches, the decision to select Milton Keynes alongside cities such as London and Manchester has been met with a mixed response. A large proportion of football supporters are against the formation of the MK Dons and the relocation of football to that area.
Pete Winkelman, MK Dons chairman, said: “We’re still very much a work in progress but I really think that the World Cup can re-enforce that agenda that we have got for growth and I think it will be really great for Milton Keynes. We have work to do on the stadium, yes, but the certainty and deliverability we have got really gives people confidence that we can deliver. Milton Keynes has made a huge investment in football and is a great testament to how important football is in communities across England.”
Elsewhere, Liverpool were relieved to be included in the bid as their campaign was struck a major blow on deadline day after Everton’s prospective new ground was refused planning permission. Either Anfield or the new Liverpool stadium will represent the city at the 2018 tournament if England win the rights.
The capital is also likely to see a large proportion of matches as Wembley and the Emirates stadium was given the go ahead. A third London stadium will also be decided between the Olympic stadium and Tottenham’s planned new stadium.
Other stadia includes: Villa Park (Birmingham), New Aston Gate (Bristol), Elland Road (Leeds), New Forest Ground (Nottingham) Old Trafford and City of Manchester stadium (Manchester), St James Park (Newcastle), Home Park (Plymouth), Stadium of Light (Sunderland) and Hillsborough who won the battle between the two Sheffield stadiums.
Lord Mawhinney said: ”I have no doubt that this process has strengthened our bid considerably. There is a temptation to think of bids in terms of just stadia but we have spent a long time talking about travelling, accommodation and security and the decision we have made constitutes a composite of all the criteria that goes towards what makes a good host city. The choices we made represented our best judgement of the strongest possible combination to give England’s bid the strongest attraction compared to other countries’ bids for 2010. We always made it clear we aspired to having a wider geographical spread. We have some world famous stadia and the world would not understand if we didn’t put them in the bid, but we felt we should have a sprinkling of tomorrow as well.”
None of the stadiums, apart from Wembley, are guaranteed to stage football, even if England win the bid. The governing body will decide a final choice of venues in 2013, should England be named as the hosts of the 2018 World Cup in December 2010.
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Lord Mawhinney obviously has his own agenda when helping to make the decision on the clubs to represent the England bid. The choice to include the City of Nottingham over the City of Derby is quite frankly mind-boggling. Derby County has a state of the art football ground that is almost full to capacity at each home game, showing the support of local people. There is great potential for expansion at a reasonable cost. The travel facilities are already proved to be exemplary with access to first class accomodation and a very beautiful, friendly, multicultural community. Nottingham Forest do not even have a ground suitable for its own fans let alone a world cup arena! There is great dispute from both City and County leaders, which has been widely published over many months, with reports that not only is a suitable site for the venue argued but also the cost is being vigourously disputed, this does not even take into account travel and accomodation for the visiting dignatoriea and fans. The imagination could run riot on the reasons for the choice of Nottingham as the winning bid, but I wonder if the true ones will ever be truly acknowledged, as always these decisions are made behind closed doors and the real fans of the beautiful game of football are always left in igmorance.
Can people please drop the stadium thing.
YES, PRIDE PARK IS BETTER THAN THE CITY GROUND. NO THE NEW FOREST STADIUM ISN’T ANYWHERE NEAR BEING BUILT.
Look at Nottingham compared to Derby.
More hotels, more places to eat, better transport and it can cope with hosting large events, Derby would struggle.
Nottingham attracts tourists with Robin Hood, and large events.
Derby can never be up to the same standard as Nottingham, because of the way the 2 cities evolved. Derby is realy a town, trying to cram as much as they can into the area inside a horrible ringroad.
Once a fan from overseas has seen a game at Pride Park, what would they do? They would probably go to Nottingham. You have to know Derby quite well to be able to just walk in and have fun. Nottingham is a tourist city, if you have been in the last few months, you will know that the city has been split up into zones, with signs in each zone telling people what they can experience.
In Derby, you have the Westfield, but other than that, there is nothing else that somebody with no knowledge of the city could get to.
I thing the quality of the cities decided the bid, not stadia.
Milton Keynes? Really?? Wow. As an AFC Wimbledon fan all I can say is that makes me sick. So what the FA is saying by selecting MK is “Yes, we believe it is perfectly acceptable for a plastic, franchise McClub to represent England on the Wolrd football stage”. Well done, FA! True colours at last.
2018 – Milton Keynes? Disgusting, makes me sick. A reward for trying to steal our football club. The REAL Dons are a proper club, unlike those con-men at MK. I sincerely back any other country that can beat England’s bid. 2018 at MK – never, never, never – no morals, no principles, no thoughts for the REAL football fans. I hope the England bid goes down the drain quicker than the Christmas turkey fat!
@Nick, please see other post regarding Milton Keynes and their fans. Please explain what a plastic fan entails.
@John Ridley, your comments stating that a reward for trying to ’steal’ is lible as no theft was ever thought of. What was, was the fact that Wimbledon FC had no fans (all gone to Chelsea) and no ground and the latter part of Wimbledon FC in Merton was business deals.
The move to MK was also a business deal, no different. The fact that true colours were shown when the fans never followed them to MK proves the point.
The bid was for MK and nit MK Dons, yes, Pete Winkelman and MK Dons stand to gain as do the surrounding areas such as Luton & Northampton.
What makes me laugh is the fact that everyone is willing the bid to fail just because of MK involvement, sad, sad people and not what I would expect of ‘real’ football fans.
Anyway, the world cup to England is financial and not aimed at fans, they do not care about your thoughts of what city got what.
If MK wasn’t in the running then you would just hijack Liverpool with some other slanderous or lible comment (well, if it were posted it would be lible and not slanderous anymore).
Anyway, MK may not yet get a game at all then you can all sit with smug faces (:o)
Everybody needs to pipe down about the choice of cities. They were decided so as to make money which is why Derby wasn’t chosen and MK was. But as for Bristol, up the City!!
Personally I’m just happy that two Yorkshire cities have been confirmed to host games, those being Leeds and Sheffield. If England get the go ahead then I’ll be attending as many games as possible, due to the fact that I’ll be 21 and it’ll be the first real chance for me to go to a major sporting event. Oh and a note to Nick and John. Although I can understand why you think it is disgusting, hoping that another country gets the tournament because of ONE city getting the go ahead…. lets just say a true football fan wouldn’t say something like that, even under the circumstances.