Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200-202)
MS JULIA
BRACEWELL AND
MR DAVID
WILLIAMS
22 NOVEMBER 2005
Q200 Gordon Banks: Last week the
Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
announced the Government's support for any bid by England to host
the finals of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Do you think the Scottish
FA's decision had any bearing on the Government getting so publicly
behind an English bid rather than waiting to see if Scotland,
perhaps jointly with Ireland, could also put in a multi-home nations
bid in hosting the World Cup? In a Five Live phone-in last week
David Davies said—and he is an ex-chairman of the FA—he
thought that there was every likelihood, if the England bid was
successful, that there could be games played in Ireland, the Millennium
Stadium and Hampden. I would like your views on that.
Ms Bracewell: I would not like
to speculate what DCMS's reasons were because I just do not know
that. If there is a way of hosting a major event and some of those
games come up to Scotland, I think that would be a good thing,
but then I would say that because I love sport. I think it is
still quite early days in that whole bid to see how that would
turn out.
Q201 Gordon Banks: Do you think those
words from an ex-FA chairman are encouraging?
Ms Bracewell: Very encouraging.
David probably knows more about this than me.
Mr Williams: Hopefully if we did
get World Cup football here it would be played around the UK.
We have got some great national stadiums. The other issue is on
the voting side. Wales, England, Scotland and Ireland would all
have votes, which you would assume that England would want. There
may be some deal that can be done to ensure that games are played
in Scotland.
Mr Davidson: Surely not!
Q202 Chairman: May I thank you for
your attendance this afternoon. Your evidence was exceptionally
good and I am sure it will be very useful to us when we compile
our report. Our Clerk was saying to me that Julia would make an
extremely good politician and I told him that as long as she does
not stand against me in my constituency it would not be a problem!
Before I declare the meeting closed, would you like to add anything
in conclusion?
Ms Bracewell: I would just like
to thank everybody for giving us the opportunity to come and speak.
If we can all unite behind it then it could be something really
special for Scotland.
Mr Williams: I would concur with
that and say that I think it will be the greatest experience for
British sport. I think we will see unprecedented investment and
interest in sport and hopefully that will go into more activity
with schools. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity for the British
public to see sport but also for the development of sport in this
country.
Chairman: Thank you.
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