When Vladimir Putin decided not to travel to Zurich in the days before FIFA announced the hosts for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, England, who were also in contention for the 2018 tournament, became excited.
Putin knew Russia had lost to a superior bid, they said. England had this whole thing sown up and Putin didn’t want to be associated with the shame.
Sepp Blatter had described England’s bid as “remarkable”, while David Beckham and Prince William had impressed everyone who met them, wowing those who would decide the winner with their celebrity and their charm.
“He does a great job,” one member of the bid team said about Beckham before the result came in. “He has been fantastic, not just as an ambassador, but as a human being.”
On the day the results were announced, some tragic souls gathered around big screens in various cities in England ready to celebrate the inevitable triumph for these fantastic human beings and for their country.
Instead, England picked up only two votes. Putin, with his keen emotional intelligence, knew which way the wind was blowing in FIFA, and Russia could get ready to host the 2018 World Cup.
England was left to reflect. Some blamed the British media. Panorama and the Sunday Times had exposed FIFA in the days before the vote which had led to anger from some connected to the bid at how their own media were sabotaging their efforts.
They also had to consider that the world – or that part of it which made up the FIFA executive committee – did not feel about their icons the way England felt about their icons.
In thinking that the celebrity of Beckham and the underlying soundness of their bid would impress, they had misread the room, even if, given all we know about FIFA, reading it correctly might have been an even greater indictment.
For celebrity in the UK, you could probably read ‘craic’ in Ireland, even if the Irish bid for the Rugby World Cup could be said to be guilty, not just of misreading the room but of misreading ourselves.
The Rugby World Council happily bears no resemblance to FIFA but Ireland’s bid lost itself in admiration for its own powers as England’s did in 2010 and the result has been equally stark.
Ireland didn’t have Beckham working the room, but they had the powerful video with Liam Neeson, the epic footage across stunning landscapes and the promise, the endless promise, of craic. All of this was underpinned by the notion that nobody can resist this package, that when we ask ‘Aren’t we great?’, the only answer anyone will ever give is, ‘Yes, yes, you are.’
When it came to ‘Vision and hosting concept’, the technical review did decide Ireland was great or, at least, not bottom of the pile. But in everything else, there was a brutal reminder of the truth, a sense of the struggle to repackage ‘craic’ under all the other headings.
There is still the secret ballot, the opportunity for Ireland to lobby hard and persuade voters that the technical review is one thing, but let’s not get carried away. Don’t forget the report said Ireland could host a World Cup and please let us be the little country that could.
The bald statements in the technical review seemed to take many by surprise as they categorised as risks aspects of the bid Irish people would have placed in the ‘sure, it will be grand’ column.
Did it matter that in 2017 – a whole six years before the tournament is scheduled to begin – the wifi wasn’t great or the infrastructure disappointing? This would all be addressed by the time 2023 came around and if it wasn’t, well, there’d always be the craic to make up for it.
Some will lament the blow to the economy of not staging a tournament, even those figures which state the benefits should always be questioned, especially when a country is determined to run it on craic alone.
The technical review wasn’t too concerned with the unseen costs, the loss of productivity which might go hand in hand with providing the craic for others and by extensions for ourselves all the days and all the nights of the competition. We could overcome any transport difficulties by doing as Brazil did in 2014 and declare public holidays to keep workers away from roads and airports, something which might be welcomed by everyone except those who were expecting people to turn up for work in the morning.
South Africa have suggested that France and Ireland take the moral high ground and withdraw from the process. They, of course, have a vested interest but the sense from the Irish camp is that they will fight on, especially as there is a secret ballot still to come.
Not since the FAI appealed to be Team 33 has Ireland seemed so desperate as the bid team insist there is all to play for, even if all that’s left seems to be the mangling of sporting metaphors. “First round in rugby World Cup bid to South Africa!” Shane Ross tweeted. “Far from over. Ireland squad already togging out for second half and win on Nov 15.”
It must be tempting to stick around alright, to deploy that superior emotional intelligence in lobbying those with votes but that would be a mistake. Instead Ireland should take comfort that in a couple of areas they have managed to expose rugby’s World Cup vainglorious ideas about itself.
In the technical review, Ireland’s stadiums struggled to compete with those in France and South Africa. They were smaller, had fewer seats and lacked the corporate facilities of their rivals.
The stadiums that were part of Ireland’s bid were exactly the right size for a Rugby World Cup, but not for how the Rugby World Cup sees its own size.
South Africa and France will have bigger stadiums and even if they are empty that doesn’t matter once the corporate areas are full.
But Ireland’s stadiums were good enough. You could probably host a Rugby World Cup at the Belfield Bowl, with a contingency plan to play a few of the bigger games towards the end of the tournament in Donnybrook or the Aviva if demand picked up on the day.
Ireland will lobby now and hope to triumph in the vote, but that is not the way to go. It is time to withdraw with dignity and to make a virtue of the fact Ireland paid the minimum tournament fee and advance the legend that Ireland felt they could host a Rugby World Cup out of a few hurling fields which had no wifi or possibly telecommunications of any kind. It is time to console ourselves in a familiar way.
One way or another, all Irish sporting stories end up on the moral high ground (it’s where we retreat to after defeats). South Africa has suggested a way out for Ireland and we should take it while we still can.
