Fifa row has "harmed" England 2018 World Cup bid
Baku, November 3 (AZERTAC). England`s 2018 World Cup bid has been "significantly harmed" by a newspaper investigation into the bidding process, says a key member of the campaign team.
A member of the Fifa executive committee previously claimed there would be no backlash against England.
But it now seems the Sunday Times probe into two members of the committee has left England with a mountain to climb ahead of the vote on 2 December.
"It has significantly harmed England`s bid," a senior member said.
With four weeks to go to the decision, England`s bid team has not given up all hope of turning the situation around.
One move being considered by England`s bid is to ask all the editors of the national newspapers and broadcasters to write to Fifa declaring their support for the 2018 bid.
Whether that would address the damage done in recent weeks is unlikely but it was a tactic used by the team leading London`s bid for the 2012 Olympics when organisers feared that a Panorama investigation could derail the campaign.
The difference then was London 2012 had more than a year to reassure IOC members that awarding the Games to London would not mark the start of a seven-year campaign against the people who run the Olympics.
Fifa`s ethics committee is due to meet from 15-17 November to discuss whether to take further action against the two executive committee members - Amos Adamu from Nigeria and Reynald Temarii from Tahiti - who were accused in the Sunday Times expose.
Reporters from the newspaper posed as lobbyists for a consortium of private American companies who wanted to secure the World Cup for the United States. Adamu has been accused of asking to be paid £500,000 - half of that up front - to build four artificial football pitches in his home country.
Temarii, a Fifa vice-president who represents the Oceania confederation, was alleged to have requested £1.5m for a sports academy to be built in the region.
Both deny any wrongdoing and will fight the allegations when they appear before Fifa`s ethics committee later this month.
The committee will also consider claims made by the former Fifa general secretary Michel Zen Ruffinen that Spain and Portugal`s bid team for 2018 has formed a voting alliance with Qatar for 2022 - a move which is against Fifa`s bidding rules.
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