Soccer - World Cup Bid 2018:Russia will host the 2018 World Cup finals following an announcement at Fifa's headquarters in Zurich today after beating rivals England and joint bids between Spain/Portugal and Holland/Belgium.
England’s dream of hosting the 2018 finals ended in disappointment after a ballot by the Fifa 22-man executive committee. President Sepp Blatter made the announcement in the Swiss city shortly after 3.30pm (Irish time). It is understood England failed to make it into the final round of voting.
The England bid team had hoped the lobbying of Fifa members by Prince William, British prime minister David Cameron and David Beckham in recent days had given them an advantage, but the campaign was ultimately unsuccessful.
England's roller-coaster campaign looked to have suffered from a backlash against corruption investigations into Fifa members by BBC Panoramaand the Sunday Timesover the last two months.
These investigations were criticised both by Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin yesterday and Spain/Portugal bid president Angel Villar Llona in his presentation to fellow Fifa members today.
The executive committee, reduced to 22 after two were suspended over the allegations, voted in secret. No details of the counts were made available by Fifa but bid member Gary Lineker said England had gone out in the first round of voting.
"They’ve always said they want to push the frontiers - I was surprised they went with two new ones but there were a lot of good strong bids," said Lineker, England's second highest goal scorer with 48. "It was always going to be hugely competitive, I just wish it was us."
Handed the World Cup by Blatter, Russian deputy prime minister Igor Shuvalov celebrated, saying: “You have entrusted us with the Fifa World Cup for 2018 and I can promise, we all can promise, you will never regret it.
“Let us make history together.”
Qatar will host the World Cup finals for the first time after Fifa awarded the Middle Eastern country the rights to the 2022 tournament.
Qatar beat bids from Australia, the United States and 2004 World Cup co-hosts Japan and South Korea.The decision comes as a slight surprise after the US and Australia bids had been highly-fancied.
Qatar’s staging of the tournament had come in for some criticism because of the weather in the country during June and July - when temperatures can rise as high as 50 degrees Celsius - while the close proximity of the stadiums had also raised some questions.
Their success in today’s vote comes just over a month before they are scheduled to host the Asian Cup finals.
Blatter said: "We go to new lands. Never has the World Cup been in Russia and Eastern Europe, and the Middle East and Arabic world have been waiting for a long time so I'm a happy president when we talk about the development of football."
Qatar bid chief Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad Al-Thani told the Fifa executive: "Thank you for backing us and expanding the game. You will be proud of us and you will be proud of the Middle East"
It was the first time Fifa had carried out a vote for two World Cup finals at the same time.