Lord Addington
Main Page: Lord Addington (Liberal Democrat - Excepted Hereditary)
Lord Shutt of Greetland
My Lords, I mentioned that I am not aware of the particular discussions with the Premier League. The bidder is the Football Association; there was a suggestion in earlier times that it would be looking for government money to assist it with the bid. That did not turn out to be the case, in that it got resources from elsewhere.
Lord Addington
My Lords, will my noble friend give us an assurance that, in bidding for the football World Cup, we are learning from our successes in the previous tournaments and games that we have achieved and from prior failures that we have had? Can he tell us the exact structure of the bidding for all future large sporting events?
Lord Shutt of Greetland
My Lords, there have been lessons learned from an unsuccessful bid for the 2006 World Cup. There was then an in-depth inquiry by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee of the other place back in 2001. That was analysed by both the Football Association and the Government and fed into the development of the bid structure and what has happened since. Winning the 2012 Olympics was, obviously, a great success story and account was taken of that in going forward for this bid. The major feature is that there is a stand-alone bid company, which has put in the bid. Football may be a national game but it is not a nationalised game. The bid company has done that work on behalf of the Football Association.