England 2018 chief executive Andy Anson wants the Football Association to lead a movement for change in the World Cup bidding process and believes the tournament may not now return to these shores for another 70 years.
England gained only the votes of their own Geoff Thompson and one other FIFA ExCo member, despite believing they had as many as seven or eight in the bank.
"It's going to be 50, 60, 70 years before we have the World Cup again. That would be sad because it would be an amazing event. No-one cares about football as much as England and it's sad that we're not even getting close to having a World Cup here," Anson told Radio Five Live's 606 show.
He believes the transparent agenda to send the World Cup to new territories, confirmed by the success of the technically inferior Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022 teams, will mean a traditional heartland like England have no chance of winning the hosting right for many decades under current rules.
Anson continued: "If we knew that there was an agenda we would not bother bidding but there's no criteria saying '(breaking) new frontiers counts for 10 times more than anything'. They actually lose money when they go to these markets.
"The process needs to be more clearly defined in terms of what FIFA is looking for. If we'd known the defining factor is that going to new frontiers is going to be 90% of the decision and only 10% down to whether it would be a good World Cup, if we'd known it was going to Russia or Qatar, or in the future China, we'd probably never have bid."
Asked about whether it was feasible to effect a change in the running of FIFA, and the World Cup allocation process in particular, Anson advocated positive action.
He suggested a regular change of personnel in the ExCo panel and suggested several major nations would have to band together to have a chance of success.
"There are number of FIFA ExCo reps who have been there for 25 years, that's not healthy," he said. "I think we need to look at having term limits or there won't be anyone coming in to change things. These are 22 guys who've been together forever and they're very protective of this very cushy lifestyle.
"But there is not going to be a World Cup bid for eight years and no-one has anything to lose. It might be the time for big powerful countries - the USA, Australia, Spain, ourselves - who feel this has been handled badly, to make their opinions felt. It's tough but there's a real chance. If anyone is going to do it now is the time and we should act quickly."
Source: PA
