David Beckham has spoken of his dream of England winning the two biggest prizes in sport - the World Cup this summer and the right to host the tournament in 2018.
Beckham is leading the five-strong England delegation to present the bid book to FIFA president Sepp Blatter in Zurich on Friday. The 35-year-old will be accompanied by Football Association and bid chairman Lord Triesman, bid chief executive Andy Anson, Britain's FIFA vice-president Geoff Thompson and Nothemba Bambiso, a 17-year-old South African who lives in a children's home and coaches in an FA-backed township project.
In an open letter on why he believes England can win the right to host the 2018 World Cup, Beckham says it "an amazing honour" to be chosen to lead the delegation and adds: "Hopefully this year we will win the greatest prize in sport twice, by winning the World Cup on and off the pitch."
Beckham continues: "As a player nothing could possibly beat playing in front of your own fans in your own country at the World Cup and I hope our players of the future will be fortunate enough to experience this.
"The bid book contains all of the detail of how we would host the World Cup in either 2018 or 22.
"It shows how passionate we are as a nation for football, how our society is amongst the most diverse in the world with communities ready to welcome every team, how we already have fantastic stadiums, training grounds, transport and hotels which will enable us to stage a festival of football creating the most commercially successful World Cup ever."
The next milestone in the bid process is FIFA's technical inspection at the end of August. This ended in tears for England's ill-fated 2006 campaign when they were judged worse than South Africa and Germany. This time around, however, England bid officials are confident they will suffer no such setback.
Ian Riley, the director of England 2018's technical bid, had the same role for South Africa's bid for the 2006 and 2010 tournaments and has been careful to ensure there will be no repeat.
Riley told Press Association Sport: "I genuinely believe we present a low-risk option to FIFA. One of the biggest risk profiles of staging any major event is construction and we have a really good balance of existing stadiums and new builds and I think that alleviates any risk concerns that you may have."
The final vote will be taken by FIFA's executive committee on December 2.
Source: PA
