I’VE a message for everyone who thinks the FIFA arrests could lead to England getting the 2022 or 2018 World Cup – they won’t.

Even if the voting processes for both were reopened and everyone who took part in the initial votes were disqualified, England wouldn’t be awarded either tournament. It wasn’t corruption or bribery that ensured that England got precisely one foreign vote; it was English football’s incompetence at international sports bids and English football attitudes, in particular its crushing superiority complex.

English football cannot forget that an Englishman codified the laws of the game and it constantly trumpets the Premier League as the premier league of the world.

No country can claim to be football’s birthplace because it is, at heart, a very simple game. People all round the world have been kicking balls around as long as there were balls to kick.

Mary, Queen of Scots had a football when she was a girl 500 years ago – if you visit Stirling Castle they will show it to you and tell you how happy they were to agree to Brazil’s request that it should be part of a major football exhibition during last year’s World Cup.

As for the world’s premier league, the country that calls football the “beautiful game” would have plenty to say on the subject regarding its domestic leagues, as would its South American neighbours, the Germans and the Italians.

Then there is that old running sore in international football politics, the arrogance of the UK in insisting that it has four seats at the football table because, for historical reasons, it has four national football bodies. Every other country observes the one country, one seat rule. The UK can’t even argue it deserves four because it is a powerhouse of international football.

No one except here in the UK was surprised when just one UK team qualified for the latest World Cup finals, and that team didn’t get past the group stage.

There is plenty of British expertise at winning international sporting bids, as evidenced by the 2014 Commonwealth Games (Glasgow), the 2014 Tour de France (Yorkshire), the 2015 gymnastics world championships (Glasgow) the 2015 Rugby World Cup (various cities), the 2016 track cycling world championships, the 2017 Athletics World Championships and the biggest of all, the 2012 Olympics and 2012 Paralympics (all London).

Both for the Olympics and the Tour de France, the bidding team started by accepting they were outsiders.

The key to their success was to convince the event organisers with solid evidence that the bidding team knew what it was doing and could do it extremely well rather than relying on the rest of the world assuming that it could, muttering behind its hands about the organisers’ incompetence/practices and then mounting a last-minute charm offensive with an ageing superstar and a handsome prince.

What the FA should do in the wake of the FIFA arrests is to use it as a springboard to introduce a transparent and fair bidding system so that future World Cup allocations are not dogged by allegations of foul play and corruption similar to those that have surrounded the last two.

It should consult at length with other UK national sporting bodies about how they succeeded in their bids, particularly the Olympic and Tour de France bids.

Then it should take a long, hard look at a successfully run World Cup – the 2006 one in Germany springs to mind – see what needs to be done, work out how to do it in the UK, including inter-venue transport, and put measures in place to ensure it can be done.

Finally, all the UK national football associations should put in a joint bid. Only then is the World Cup likely to be held in the UK. But it won’t be before 2026.