London - England's bid to host the 2018 World Cup suffered another blow on Tuesday as Sir Dave Richards, the vice-chairman for international relations, resigned. Richards, the chairman of the Premier League, was only appointed to the bid committee seven months ago, seemingly to alleviate ill- feeling caused by no representative of the Premier League's executive structure being involved in the bid company initially set up by Lord Triesman, the chairman of the Football Association (FA).
"With the recent changes to the England 2018 bid team structure I feel I can now best support a successful bid without the necessity of sitting on the board," Richards said in a statement.
Those changes, which took place 12 days ago, were supposed to have streamlined the board and acted as a healing process, but it is believed Richards was furious at the appointment of Simon Greenberg, formerly Chelsea's director of communications, as chief of staff.
Richards is also said to have felt his role was undermined by the appointment to the bid team of Triesman's predecessor as FA chairman, Geoff Thompson, who sits on the executive committee, and to have been dismayed by ongoing talks with the former Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein about playing some future role in the bid.
Reports suggest that the Manchester United chief executive officer, David Gill, may also soon resign from the bid committee.
Given Richards's roles as chairman of the FA's international committee and president of the European Professional Football Leagues organization, his departure must come as a blow.
He is particularly highly regarded in South Africa, host of next summer's World Cup, after he helped provide stadium designs to the tournament organizers.
African votes will be crucial to any bid looking to get beyond the first round of voting when a decision is made next year.
"My positions as Premier League chairman, FA board member and chairman of the FA's international committee provide me with ample opportunities to bang the drum for English football, and the bid particularly, right across the world, which I will continue to do wherever and whenever I can," Richards's statement added.
"My belief is that England has all the right attributes to host a successful World Cup - our challenge now is to convince the 24 members of Fifa [the executive committee] of that. This must be our focus and priority going forward."
