Sent shortly after the World Cup bidding debacle:
The FA, the 2018 bid committee, the Royal Family and the Government invested heavily in trying to win the 2018 World Cup for the UK.
The BBC deigned to show a panorama programme about corruption within Fifia just a day before the decision day for hosting the World Cup.
Earlier this year the Sunday Times had investigated Fifa and Fifa had made clear it did not welcome the investigation and that it had effected the England Bid.
Despite this knowledge the BBC arrogantly cited its own right to free speech to broadcast the Panorama programme this week. Today Sepp Blatter made it clear in the voting process that certain media events had effected the English bid. England then got 2 votes and went out in the first round.
The BBC could have broadcast the same programme tonight or next week, the reason it did not is clearly because it was chasing ratings. This chase may well have cost England the chance of hosting the 2018 World Cup.
As such, the BBC should immediately refund the costs of the bid, the Government and all parties who have made such efforts that the BBC saw fit to sabotage in such an obvious manner.
Given the BBC is funded by Licence, the cost should not be borne by extra funding, but by finding the money from current budgets.
Do you think I will get a response that is not utterly self-serving? I look forward to their pathetic self-justifications.
37 comments:
Why bother when it was obvious that the tax payer would have to pay for it if it came to England.
Imagine the scenario:-
The BBC waited until after the vote to show the Panorama program.
England win the FIFA vote to host in 2018.
BBC then show Panorama.
The outcome:-
The whole world believes we only got it through paying bribes (probably from the taxpayer).
I think the BBC did the right thing, we should concentrate on attacking the corruption and wait until FIFA is cleaned up before attempting a bid at all.
Seriously?
I'm no fan of the Beeb but should it really have covered up FIFA corruption just so we could fling another few million of debt at another sports event?
bit hysterical CU,
The FA made a proper horlicks of the whole process right from day one. maybe even further back when they reneged on the deal with Germany?
Blatter wanted Russia therefore the committee wanted Russia.
THe panorama thing had nothing new anyway!
While a fan of your blog, and not a fan of the BBC, I disagree with you on this. If keeping quiet about corruption is the cost of hosting the world cup, we can do without. A shame, but the price of being honest.
The FA, the 2018 bid committee, the Royal Family and the Government all kowtowing to a bunch of crooks was not an edifying sight.
Well done the BBC.
What Paul said. Not with you on this one sir.
The BBC say they told Fifa on 10/11.
Given that, Fifa had three weeks to do something and chose not to.
We only go two votes - bad publicity was just one of the reasons we lost.
It is the BBC's job to extract the best value from the asset and they did.
It currently sounds like fifa decided to place the world cup in countries where it has never been before, and forgot to tell Europe.
Nothing to see here, move on.
Nope, the BBC was chasing ratings and could ave shown this prgramme anytime. I am not anti-free speech, just anti wasting money. The BBC put the nail in the coffin of wasting the bid costs. So FIFA are corrupt - the argument you should be putting forward is that we should have have bid in the first place.
Agree CU. If you embarras an organisation you can't then expect it to vote for you on the following day.
It was ratings chasing, pure and simple. ordinarily, this matters little. but to damage a bid where considerable investment had been made, seems irresponsible.
No one is saying don't publish what you have. Just to think about the consequences and the backlash.
Can't we just do more Home Nation games or something? We don't need FIFA and their corruption and their usual tranzi obsession with fighting racism or bringing football to Africans/Muslims, etc, etc?
Just organise some games and people will come.
Much better to expose some of the corruption we all knew was rife than to win a corrupt process. Don't understand why we are so keen to host everything. Can't we concentrate on getting the basics right first?
There was no way I could have influenced the downright stupid decision to bid in the first place. So given that "they" were going to waste my money in bidding, what happened in Zurich was the best possible outcome. It has put a definite line under the losses. One disaster for state spending (2012 Olympics) is bad enough, we have just been saved from two in a row. So I am very grateful to all those who made it impossible for that footie world cup thing to land on Britain's shores. I don't care how they done it, I just very glad that they did.
Hooray....maybe a bit less footie on the box in 2014.......
Surely "affecting" in place of "effecting"?
So the BBC was chasing ratings and uncovering corruption. Isn't this what they're supposed to do? Since when did it become the role of the royal family, government and FA to waste money by bidding to host the world cup?
The BBC wasn't chasing ratings. It just hates anything English or British. This was a deliberate attempt to stop the World Cup coming here.
If - as you say - the BBC's accusation caused the FIFA decision to go against ... then doesn't this further prove that FIFA is corrupt ?
I look forward to BBC expose's on the EU gravy train.
FIFA is corrupt - the BBC were not saying anything they could nothave said a year before - hence chasing ratings.
As for losing money, I think a world cup is probably profitable, after all there is no infrastructure investments - although FIFA nick a lot thourhg insisting on no taxes.
Fowke - good point, they do hate England. Maybe we should have done a joint bid with Scotland?
Less footie on the box - hmm..I am quite partial but surely if you don't have sky there is far less on now than there used to be. Now we get x factor and I am a celebrity instead?
Sorry CU, I am with the consensus, not broadcasting it would gave been tantamount to collusion.
I'm also not a fan of the BBC - but doesn't your complaint rather prove their point ?
In an ideal world they'd have dobbed them in AFTER the selection process was over, I admit. It was a mistake not to do so.
But while I regret that, it's not something I'll be complaining to them about. It is in the end, only footy.
I do however hate the way the BBC bangs the gong about British corruption when it comes to getting export deals - eg al Yamanah. That's just the way things are done in many parts of the world - if we ignore that fact we won't get many contracts.
we're no longer powerful enough (if indeed we ever were) to enforce our morality on the Middle East. The BBC should worry about corruption nearer home.
Last World Cup Italy so disapproved of the venue they lost every match so they could go home soonest. Perhaps England should do that this time.
I think the BBC already knew how the FIFA vote was likely to go. After all, the have Moscow correspondents. In which case, it was better to air the Panorama show before the vote. Sour grapes otherwise.
The trouble is that the Panorama documentary didn't tell us anything we didn't already know in some form or other.
Ultimately though I doubt if it made any difference to the voting. Even if FIFA is corrupt there is a certain logic in awarding it to Russia.
I agree with the comments above, it is more disgraceful that the PM and Royal family should be so obsequious to the FIFA committee.
so you're in favour of kow-towing to blatter's bunch of corrupt cronies? frankly pathetic. the bbc was absolutely right to air the programme when they did and expose the fifa graft. the fact that england didn't get the bid anyway is irrelevant. the two facts are not necessarily linked. russia and qatar were always going to win the bids given their willingness to line fifa's pockets.
finally - why would you want to host the wc anyway?
Never said I wanted to bow to FIFA. I know FIFA is corrupt, but for the BBC to waste £15 million of bidding money is not on and they should pay it back. Everyone keeps saying it made no difference - that is NOT what Blatter and others have said today - they said it was the direct cause of the bid. Case closed on the BBC being guilty of causing us to lose.
Whether we wanted the World CUp or not I don't care, having a free press I am all in favour of - but as said before they could have showed this anytime they chose a time to maximise ratings.
Also, if you really think the Engladn bid was so sunk, why did Cameron and beckham and prince William go - they must have thought it was a close thing - not a first round exit. Listen to Andy Anson today, at the eye of the storm -shocke we lost 5 promised votes after Blatter said to them please consider 'media issues.'
Keep trying becuase no one has convinced me yet! Enjoying it though.
CU
It was a done deal before the Zurich charade. Hence putin not needing to bow and scrape. As if the career politician blatter would go into the final meet without knowing how it would pan out!
The FA over the years have demonstrated endless schemes for ralphing things up and wasting money. I'm confused why you want the license fee payers to carry the can for these idiots.
And by media I'm sure blatter meant the whole shooting match. E.g. the times sting and the mail's trap on triesman being prime examples of what the FIFA crooks want to avoid.
Did you see the Guardian piece on all the legal exemptions demanded for the FIFA "family" ? Totally shameless!
If anything I hope our press descend on them like ravenous dogs. Al-beeb included
I'm with yokel. The money for this nonsense would have had to come from somewhere, and it seems like it's not just from the football fans. I've absolutely no doubt that the usual blather would get trotted out and every single one of us - even the ones who don't care for football, and wish it would go away - would end up having our wallets prised open in order to pay for the stupid thing. At least you can get out of paying for the BBC by not having a TV.
Whatever has been spent already, you can guarantee it's less than would have been spent if England had "won"...
Tom: "At least you can get out of paying for the BBC by not having a TV."
What if we want a TV, and we want to watch ITV, Channel 4 and Five, but we don't want to bankroll a load of Marxists at the BBC? What then?
You can get out of walking by cutting your legs off.
You can get out of breathing by stuffing your mouth and nostrils with rags.
There are a lot of things you can get out of, if you're really determined.
John Redwood offers a different explanation on his blog.
(Couldn't link for some reason)
Michael: my response wasn't intended to justify paying for the BBC, or whatever hot button it might appear that I'm hammering with my fist, merely that out of two things that are worth complaining about - hosting the world cup, and the BBC - it is possible to avoid paying for the BBC, and it's pretty easy to do. (You can probably get clever about it, but you don't have to.)
The world cup, had it taken place, on the other hand, would probably be harder to avoid paying for, since it appears FIFA were hitting on the government for the cash to help pay for it.
I have no specific objection to the world cup, but I'm afraid I do have to object to the idea that it would be good to ultimately have me help pay for the thing. Sorry, no can do - if you want another answer, ask somebody who actually likes football (I am happy for them to pay for it, and I really don't mind).
And so when I saw somebody suggesting that the BBC (that I can avoid paying for) has somehow done wrong, because it seems like they've helped avoid having me pay in part for the world cup (that I couldn't avoid paying for), I just felt the urge to say something :)
Tom, that is the best argument yet.
Why doesn't the FA start its own world cup competition? A true CUP competition - ie all the names in a hat, draw at random, play home and away, until you get a final, which can be played in a neutral venue.
If FIFA is as corrupt as they say (and I'm happy to believe it) then there must be a fair few other national FAs that would throw in their lot with us.
The Reds at the BBC don't want people flying the flag. Might remind us what we are, what we have lost, and stand to lose more of once their mad Communitarian Utopia is realised. I smell Common Purpose and subversive political policy decisions at play here...
Shame our sellout to the EUSSR and two illegal wars doesn't get the zombie hoardes as upset. I'm underwhelmed...
Post a Comment