Back on track in racing, and wow! a non-English FIFA member has voted for England!

Wolf Slayer won! I'm tempted to say "Woohoo!" because it gives my confidence back in analyzing racing after 2 bad calls.

So England got 2 miserable votes for their World Cup bid (surprise surprise), and now everyone is trying to figure out where it went all wrong. With billions at stake, I wonder if it's really plausible to have this kind of vote decided by a 24-member committee, some of whom are under strong suspicion of bribery? The Sporting Life is talking about England and the English not being seen favourably in FIFA; they can have a point. But the real question is with the amount of lobbying that comes with the territory, how different is the trust you can put in the real objectivity of the committee and the trust you have, say, in cyclists being drug-free when competing in events like the Tour de France etc? Even if the England bid won, an Englishman (or woman) would still be thinking that there were surely other contributing dominant forces at play; not the irrelevant "strong technical bid", "impassioned Beck's presentation" headlines used by the press to over-hype England's chances. Reading the press signals in the hours leading to the vote would give you the feeling that England had a real chance, and that got people jumping on-board. At some point, England was "odds-on" to land it. The layers must have laughed all the way to the bank.

Oh well, London has the Olympics. Same lobbying, same story. But then again, we are not talking about Blatter, Platini and co this time, right?