AS football fans await with eager anticipation this year’s World Cup in Russia, Ruth Davidson has floated the intriguing prospect of an England and Scotland joint bid for a future tournament.
The Scottish Conservative leader made the suggestion at a conference on the Union in London, organised by the Policy Exchange think-tank, where she told the audience how “more Union” was needed and pointed to a joint bid World Cup bid as an example.
“I hesitate here in floating the idea of a joint UK-wide bid, knowing just how much trouble it would land me in with the Scottish FA. But it’s a thought, isn’t it?” declared the MSP.
“And this is a think-tank, so as long as it doesn’t mean a joint team on the pitch, what the hell,” declared Ms Davidson.
The 2018 tournament kicks off next month and the 2022 event has already been awarded to Qatar. Fifa will shortly decide on the host for 2026 with, at present, just two contenders: a joint bid by Canada, Mexico and the United States and one from Morocco.
If Ms Davidson’s idea is to get anywhere soon, the FA and SFA have until June 13 to get their boots on.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel