Why world football should learn from the Americans

Insideworldfootball

Those in Brazil who are now so angry about staging the 2014 World Cup should blame their fellow South Americans, the Colombians, for making it such a high profile political event.

It was the Colombians in 1973 who both invented modern football World Cup bidding and linked it to politics. Seeking the 1986 World Cup, they entertained a visiting FIFA delegation lavishly and at a reception the president of Columbia, Dr Borrero, made it clear that hosting the competition would prove Colombia had arrived as a nation. "It is in everyone's mutual interest to demonstrate to the world that a country such as ours is perfectly competent to put this challenge to its sports administration, thus conveying all other nations just how capable it is of organizing an event of this magnitude in 1986." The Colombians then made declarations that have been echoed by Brazilian politicians, indeed any politician seeking the World Cup: "If it is necessary to construct new stadia, we shall do so with the people's backing in the knowledge of the Colombians' love of football."