ENGLAND’S failed bid for the 2018 World Cup is, of course, behind the current administrators’ determination to take on Fifa, just as the US’s failed bid for 2022 is behind theirs.

But don’t presume it’s the national pride and the fair play argument that they are pushing at us, in order to exploit our sense of patriotism, that is really behind their stand.

The FA’s failed bid cost around £21 million. But Greg Dyke and David Gill aren’t too bothered about that, either. What sporting executives are bothered about  missing out on, in the neoliberal world we live in, is the cost of hosting a World Cup.

Because it is that money that eventually works its way into the bank accounts of shareholders in the companies that receive the World Cup contracts — who then hide as much of it as they can offshore to reduce their tax bill.

They don’t even have to give as much of it as they should to the country that created the market they are profiting from in the first place.

Yes, the figures discussed in relation to the US investigation are big to us, in the region of $150m (£98m). But sums like this are small beer compared to total World Cup spending and revenue. Brazil spent an estimated £4 billion on hosting last year’s extravaganza, while experts estimate Qatar 2022 will cost £6bn.

The World Cup is Fifa’s only really big payday. It made about £2bn profit on Brazil 2014.For all the organisation’s well-documented failure to police greed and collusion among officials, its current one associated member, one vote set up does see decent investment of the money Fifa makes from the World Cup in grassroots programmes.

The genuine popularity of Blatter in developing nations as a result of this was succinctly put by Nigerian FA chief Amaju Pinnick on the eve of the vote, who said: “Blatter feels Africa, he sees Africa and he has imparted so much — a lot of developmental programmes. Without Blatter we wouldn’t enjoy all the benefits we enjoy today from Fifa. What Blatter pushes is equity, fairness and equality among the nations. We don’t want to experiment.”

Blatter intends to call another election, probably in December, in which he will not stand.

Dyke, probably giddy at this news, let slip his intentions: “It now means that we can get someone in to run Fifa. We can get in there and find out where all the money has gone over all these years and sort it out for the future.”

Whether that means he believes he has a magic wand to stamp out corruption, or merely ensure that Fifa is sorted out so the money comes to the right people rather than the wrong ones, remains unclear at this point.

He has made no secret that changing the weighting in the votes in favour of the rich nations is something he favours, saying: “A democracy where everyone gets one vote looks completely fair but then you say hang on a minute, Turks & Caicos Islands get the same vote as England, Germany or America, that doesn’t make any sense at all. At some stage, that might have to be changed.

“What Mr Blatter has done is gone around the world encouraging any small country he can find to join Fifa and that is a vote for him. The money is spread fairly evenly and for a lot of smaller countries that means almost their total income comes from Fifa, and they thank Mr Blatter for that.”

And his statement that: “We may have to rely upon sponsors and prosecutors to push this over the top,” gives a clue as to where the impetus to force change is coming from.

The world outside the West just doesn’t come into the calculations of those plotting to re-establish Europe’s power within Fifa, or even possibly establish it separately. Not, that is, unless it is enables them to enhance their product and therefore charge its customers even more, by providing marquee players or countries that would give a Uefa-run competition credibility.

And neither do you and I, as people who just love to watch and play the game, matter.

That is, we don’t matter apart from in two regards. The first is where we are doing the actual work that enables them to make those profits (therefore expect to see an argument that “it will bring jobs” emanating soon from either Dyke or David Cameron). The second is when we are paying for TV subscriptions, or buying tickets, sponsors’ products, replica shirts, etc.

So, if you think the eventual outcome of Dyke and co’s posturing will be greater democracy in the game of the kind a genuine popular movement like FC United demonstrated is possible against Benfica the other night, expect to be disappointed.