Filed under: Football, World Cup 2010
David Beckham's colourful claim that football is in the DNA of every Englishman was part of the most polished, professional and passionate of bid presentations from the countries who wanted to stage the 2018 World Cup, but it was not enough to prevent Russia winning the vote, while Qatar were picked as the shock hosts for 2022.Beckham was still unable to bring the greatest show on earth back to England - amid the fears that he and the rest of the bid team had been forced to pay the ultimate price for Panorama and the Sunday Times' revelations about corruption within the Fifa Executive Committee.
Beckham was sparked an emotional response from his audience when he spoke on the first anniversary of his grandfather's death and detailed what it would mean to every Englishman to stage the finals again for the first time since 1966.
It was one element that made England's bid presentation by far the best. Slick and making the most of its heavyweight ambassadors - David Cameron, Prince William and Beckham - so much so that Sunderland chairman Niall Quinn claimed that "even the dogs in the street in Zurich were saying what a great bid England had".
England received only two votes in the first round, failing to get Jack Warner's Conacacaf vote as Russia won by a knockout in the second round when it was suggested 24 hours earlier that there might be no more than one vote in it.
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