England won the World Cup last time they hosted it, in 1966.
It is decision day today for England and the other ten countries hoping to host the 2018 or 2022 football World Cups.
The English bid is up against Russia, as well as joint bids from Netherlands-Belgium, and Spain-Portugal to host the 2018 tournament. Meanwhile, for the 2022 World Cup, there are bids from Australia, the United States, Japan, South Korea and Qatar.
Today marks the end of years of preparation and expectation from all the countries involved, as the decision about both world cups will finally be made at about 3pm GMT in Zurich. Over the last two days the bidding nations have been making presentations to 22 FIFA (the world football association) officials who will all vote this afternoon.
To convince FIFA of England’s bid, Prime Minister David Cameron, heir to the British throne Prince William, and footballing superstar David Beckham have all flown out to Zurich. Together they helped make England’s presentation this morning, with an emotional Becks (Beckham’s affectionate nickname- he is a bit of a hero in England) particularly impressing the voters. However, it looks to be a very close battle between England, Russia and Spain-Portugal for the 2018 tournament, so only time will tell how successful they have been.
If you are from one of the bidding nations then we wish you good luck, though of course not enough luck to beat England!
Want to see quite how passionate the British are about sport? Check out our Guide to British Sport.
Related Articles
- World Cup 2018 venue vote: Rolling coverage (blogs.ft.com)
- 2018/2022 World Cup Decision Day – Live Blog – December 2, 2010 (epltalk.com)
- World Cup 2018 and 2022 decision day – live! | Paul Doyle and Steve Busfield (guardian.co.uk)
- England bid team ‘ready’ in Zurich (bbc.co.uk)
- England bid team ‘ready’ in Zurich – BBC News (news.google.com)
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