Live from Zurich (via icy southern England) – The Bidding

And so the World Cup bid presentations have ended and we wait nervously while the FIFA committee members enjoy a lavish lunch and choose from an extensive wine list having enjoyed a morning of video entertainment.

Who knows whether their minds were already made up before they had breakfast this morning, but to be fair to the English FA, Prince William, David Beckham and David Cameron, our bid was slick and professional.

Beck’s point about attending the 2010 World Cup draw one day after the death of his grandfather Joe was touching, but I thought it was also a subtle attempt to remind FIFA that he had put them first last year and maybe now was payback time.

The Dutch/Belgium bid was ‘nice’, but having spoken to several friends in the Netherlands during the last few weeks, not one felt they would win anyway. In fact several said they hoped England would win it.

Surprisingly the Spanish/Portugal presentation seemed designed to bore FIFA into submission and won’t have done them any favours.

Russia’s presentation was strong, but with Putin deciding not to attend maybe he knows something the rest of us don’t – I wonder if he spotted something in those WikiLeaks documents?

The Isle of Man’s last minute attempt to be considered floundered when their FA representative was refused admission to FIFA’s Zurich HQ.

The BBC has just announced that the voting process has started (GMT 13:00). As the result isn’t due until 14:30 to 15:00 it really makes you wonder whether the world’s favourite sport is safe in the hands of men who take up to 90 minutes to count to 22!

I suspect that most people reading this blog will have live footage streaming onto their PCs, but I will post the result of the vote on here as soon as it is announced.

English fingers crossed.