England face an uphill battle if they do attempt to host the 2018 World Cup, writes Hyder Jawad.

It was one of those moments when time seemed to stand still. "The winner is . . . Deutschland," Sepp Blatter said, announcing that the 2006 World Cup would be hosted by Germany, and looking as if he was about to cry.

This was the summer of 2000. Franz Beckenbauer, the head of the German bidding committee, glowed; Bobby Charlton, his English counterpart, bristled. The South African representatives, who had extracted the backing of Blatter and expected to win, sensed something was amiss.

There was. His name was Charles Dempsey, of New Zealand, the president of the Oceania Football Confederation, the man who abstained from voting when he was supposed to cast his ballot in favour of South Africa. Had he done what he was told, the voting would have been tied and Blatter, the leading man in world football, would have directed his casting vote towards South Africa.

Allegations quickly emerged that Dempsey, aged 78 and an Albert Steptoe lookalike, had been threatened or paid off, none of which helped to ease suggestions that Fifa, the game's world governing body, had made a mess of the whole spectacle.

Blatter, the Fifa president, had an idea (he always has ideas) to avoid such problems in future: a rotation system. For the next tournament and beyond, he said, each continent would have a chance to supply a host nation for the World Cup.

The problem of this was not initially obvious. When South Africa won the right to host the 2010 tournament, beating Morocco and Egypt in a close but spirited election in May 2004, Blatter claimed a political success. It was Africa's turn - emotionally as well as officially.

But then came the voting for the 2014 World Cup. South America was next in the rotation system but guess what? Only one of their nations - Brazil - wanted to host the tournament. An election was unnecessary. It was from that moment on that Blatter's idea looked misconceived.

So when Fifa decided yesterday to abandon the rotation plan, common sense seemed to prevail. From today, any nation can launch a bid, which was good news for the idealists at the Football Association headquarters in Soho Square, London, who are looking at trying to host the 2018 World Cup.

"It is exactly what we were hoping for and we will now discuss a timetable for a potential bid," Brian Barwick, the FA's chief executive, told the BBC.

"We have already received tremendous support from the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. We realise there will be strong competition involved in any bidding process but we know that England has fantastic stadiums, a unique tradition and passion for the game and also a very strong infrastructure."

Barwick is right about the tradition, stadiums and infrastructure, but these count for less than they did even when Blatter was announcing Germany's candidacy seven years ago. It has become a political game and England, for all its sporting virtues, does not generally perform well in the field of sporting diplomacy.

Politically, the Germans outmanoeuvred the English so skilfully and so emphatically in 1999 and 2000 that the FA was never likely to win the rights to stage the 2006 World Cup.

True, London won the 2012 Olympic Games but that was because they produced the best bid. For the 2018 World Cup, England is likely to face competition from Russia, China, Australia and the USA- all of whom would draw great support. There is, one might say, something romantically appealing about an Australian bid, even if they would be forced to host a World Cup in their winter.

An England bid would create so many imponderables.

Will the country have the appropriate rail service? You can imagine the scene: thousands of people trying to attend a match in the north but they cannot complete the journey because the railway is undergoing its traditional round of weekend engineering works.

Which stadiums would the FA choose? For Euro 96, which England hosted spectacularly, the answer was obvious. It will be anything but obvious in future because so many stadiums are being refurbished. London will probably use two stadiums (Wembley and Emirates), Liverpool one (New Anfield, which will be built by 2010), Manchester one (Old Trafford), and the North-east one (St James' Park).

But what of Birmingham? Traditionally, Villa Park has been the leading stadium in the area, and Aston Villa are good at staging large events, but Birmingham City are planning a new stadium - but where, even they do not know - and are keen for a piece of the action.

Villa Park successfully staged four matches at the 1966 World Cup, did likewise at Euro 96, and, in 2001, became the first regional English stadium to stage international matches in three centuries. If Barwick is basing England's strength partly on its traditions, there are few stadiums more traditional than Villa Park.

If only the tradition card carried the weight it did in the past. It is a diminishing tool. The USA proved when they hosted a spectacular World Cup in 1994 that a lack of tradition need not be a disadvantage. USA 94 broke World Cup attendance records that are unlikely to be beaten. It also generated money on an unprecedented scale.

The 1994 World Cup final in Los Angeles might have been a damp squib but, I swear, as I baked in the sunshine in Rose Bowl on that barmy afternoon, and watched Roberto Baggio blast his penalty over the crossbar, I had a sense of the big occasions that I have never felt in any World Cup since. The Americans barely know football but they do know how to stage an event.

Fifa likes money. It likes large stadiums. It likes tournaments in countries were crowd violence is less likely to occur. That is why the USA is always on call to host a World Cup at short notice should the designated hosts be unable to fulfil their obligations.

It is easy to see where the USA would find the votes to win an election. It is even easy to see where China would find the votes. It is harder to see where England will find them.

Convincing European nations might be just one of their many problems.