Tensions rise over 2018 bid

THE ALREADY controversial race to host the 2018 World Cup has exploded into acrimony after the English bid complained to Fifa over derogatory comments by its Russian counterparts about London’s high crime rate and alcohol problems.

As Alexei Sorokin, the chief executive of the Russian bid, was delivering a presentation extolling the merits of the Russian bid at an international football conference in Zurich, it emerged that his English rivals had lodged the complaint demanding a formal public apology.

While England will be hoping the complaint, lodged late last week, will hurt Russian chances, there is a danger it could backfire if some of the Fifa executive committee feel it is petty or calculated at a time when the process has been badly damaged by corruption allegations.

Sorokin’s interview with Sport Express was reported in English as saying: “We do not enter into squabbles although we have much to say. It’s no secret, for example, that London has the highest crime rate when compared with other European cities, and the highest level of alcohol consumption among young people.”

He also reportedly said that Manchester United fans burning an American flag in protest at the Glazers were “inciting ethnic hatred”.

Sorokin, who questioned the timing of the “strange complaint”, said yesterday he had no need to apologise but would happily explain the comments, arguing they had been misinterpreted and mistranslated.

“I do not feel that what I said originally requires an apology. I am sure there is a record of that which, if forced, I’ll have to find,” he said.

“The idea was that the media did not focus on the negative manifestations of any other societies, ours or anyone else’s. The examples may have been bad examples, as it turned out, but they were just examples.”

The demand for a public apology, aimed at Sorokin personally rather than the bid, comes after the comments caused a furore that led London’s mayor, Boris Johnson, to start a Twitter campaign.

In the wake of Johnson’s intervention, the Russian bid issued a statement that said: “Mr Sorokin regrets if his statements have led to such an erroneous interpretation and understanding.”

But England 2018 sources, who insist their outrage is genuine and say it is not the first time that a member of the Russian bid team has spoken about them in negative terms, said they still wanted a public apology.

In May, Sorokin responded to claims from the England 2018 board member Sebastian Coe that it had the best fans by saying: “Wherever the English fans travel they create huge problems for the hosts. In this sense they are indeed ‘the best’.”

The ethics committee is investigating two executive committee members and four other officials for alleged corruption. It is also investigating rumours that two bidders – believed to be Spain’s joint bid with Portugal, England’s other major rival for 2018, and Qatar, bidding for 2022 – agreed to trade blocs of votes in contravention of Fifa rules.

The Russians have been angry for some time at what they see as a focus in the English media on the negative aspects of their bid, including racism and hooliganism. Sorokin said yesterday: “We cannot be happy about the way we have been depicted. Not because the focus has been on the negative but because there was no attention on the positive side.”

David Triesman, the former chairman of the English Football Association and England 2018, had to resign in May after a newspaper covertly recorded him claiming Russia and Spain had entered into an agreement to bribe referees at the World Cup.

Guardian Service