FIFA should be begging England to stage 2018 World Cup: Venables

LONDON - Former England football manager Terry Venables has said that, England never should have bid for the 2018 World Cup, but should have allowed FIFA to beg it to stage it.

“Our rivals from Spain and Portugal, Russia and Holland and Belgium may beg to differ, but, when it comes to hosting the tournament, I believe we are the outstanding candidate. The logical choice. The most sensible solution,” Venables writes in an article for The Sun.

“We have the fans, facilities and foundations to put on the greatest World Cup ever. All we need now is the nod from the bigwigs in Zurich on Thursday. It is certainly time the showpiece came to these shores again. We have not hosted it since that glorious summer of 1966. That means come 2018, it will be 52 years since the country that gave football to the world last staged the world’s biggest football tournament,” he added.

England hase not hosted a major tournament since Euro 96, when, of course, I was in charge of the Three Lions.

According to Venables, “It was a summer none of us will ever forget, a watershed moment in English football as we put on an extravaganza still talked about today. Even 141/2 years on, people still stop me to talk about it.”

He said staging the 2018 World Cup would reproduce that feel-good factor. (ANI)