THE VENUES the bid team hope will play host to an English World Cup in 2018 will mix “the famous, the excellent and tomorrow” in “probably the best” line up of stadiums anywhere in the world, they said yesterday as the final list was revealed.
Lord Mawhinney, the Football League chairman who oversaw the host city bidding process, said the inclusion of new stadiums with capacities of 40,000-plus in Bristol, Nottingham, Milton Keynes and Plymouth alongside the most iconic grounds in English football reflected a desire to ensure the entire country could share in a World Cup and to construct a bid that could leave a lasting legacy.
In London, Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium and Wembley will be joined by either the new Olympic stadium or the new White Hart Lane, which is not due to be completed until 2016. The announcement will add to the uncertainty over the future use of the Stratford Stadium after the Olympics minister, Tessa Jowell, had insisted it should be reduced to a 25,000-capacity athletics venue. But the debate was reopened by Baroness Ford, the Olympic Park Legacy Company chairwoman, who wants to look at the options for retaining it at either 55,000 or 80,000 capacity. The legacy body will deliver its verdict next year.
“We were looking for a mix. We have some world famous stadiums and the world wouldn’t have understood if we had missed those out,” said Mawhinney, “but we thought we should have a sprinkling of tomorrow as well.”
Derby, Leicester and Hull missed out. The inclusion of Plymouth was a surprise, but the 2018 chief executive Andy Anson said the city’s team had made an “excellent” case in favour of the new 43,874-capacity Home Park as a catalyst for regeneration.
Despite yesterday’s announcement of the 17 grounds in 12 host cities that will be included in England’s bid book when it is submitted to Fifa next May, there remain questions surrounding stadiums in Liverpool and London.
Following the rejection of planning permission for Everton’s proposed new stadium in Kirkby and speculation over whether Liverpool will find the funds to build a new Anfield, Mawhinney said the club had promised to upgrade their existing home if the new one was not forthcoming by the time Fifa made their decision in 2013.
Anson said he was confident Liverpool’s managing director, Christian Purslow, would find the investment that would allow the new ground to be built. “They have a clear plan for getting investment into the club and then the business plan for the stadium must be among the easiest projects to get away because it makes perfect sense as a stand-alone proposition, it’s just going to increase Liverpool’s profitability,” he said.
Fifa will slim the list down to 12 stadiums if the bid is successful.
