The message that England is the spiritual home of football and deserves to host the 2018 World Cup finals will be rammed home today when Sepp Blatter, the Fifa president, takes on a role with the world’s oldest club. Blatter will officially accept the honorary presidency of the Sheffield FC Foundation as the club attempt to move to historic new headquarters.
Sheffield are the world’s oldest club, with a history stretching back to 1857, when members devised the first rules of the game, such as corners, free kicks and the idea of the solid crossbar.
But, after several itinerant years, with the club now based in the Sheffield suburb of Dronfield, officials are eager to move back to the city centre to create a stadium and centre that could become a National Heritage site as a commemoration of Sheffield’s role in the creation of the modern game.
With Sheffield also bidding to become one of the host cities for the 2018 World Cup, the tiny club have unwittingly added momentum to England’s flagging campaign.
Jack Warner, the Fifa vicepresident who criticised the FA’s bid for the 2018 tournament as “lightweight”, has accepted an invitation to become a member of Sheffield FC, while Blatter is one of the club’s biggest supporters.
Richard Tims, the Sheffield FC chairman, will be at Fifa headquarters in Zurich today to meet Blatter and settle the details of the new role as head of a foundation to help to continue the transformation of Sheffield.
The club have become a significant force for good in Sheffield and the surrounding area, with 25 different teams, including juniors, women’s and four disability squads in action, while their coaches work in 42 schools. The outreach programme is said to be one of the biggest and most effective outside the Barclays Premier League, which the club wants to expand after taking on charitable status with Blatter in the honorary job.
Sheffield will find out in December if it has been successful in becoming one of 15 candidate cities should England win the bid for 2018.
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