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Andy Burnham is exploring a bid to host the menâs World Cup in the UK, alongside plans for a Northern Olympics, The i Paper can reveal.
The move would bring the World Cup back to the UK for the first time since England hosted in 1966 and forms part of a growing push by Burnham to use major sporting events to drive investment, tourism and regeneration beyond London.
Burnham told colleagues at a Friday morning meeting at No 10 North in Manchester that he is looking at how Britain could host the tournament and is already in talks with the nationâs footballing bodies about how a campaign could be delivered.
Shorts
politics
Footballâs coming home? Burnham plots UK World Cup bid
The move would bring the World Cup back to the UK for the first time since England hosted in 1966.
Burnham bids for the North
Menâs World Cup 2038
Burnham told colleagues at a Friday morning meeting at No 10 North he is planning a World Cup bid, The i Paper can reveal.
Plans are underway
He said he is already in talks with the nationâs footballing bodies about how to run the campaign.
Prioritising the North
He also wants to put on a âNorthern Olympicsâ and bring the 2035 Ryder Cup to Bolton.
The UK has only hosted the World Cup once
It makes you wonder whether the authorities at the European and global level have something against us. The country that invented the game, youâd think we would have had a bit more of that attention
Andy Burnham told the Away Days podcast
It would ânot be fairâ for the Olympics to be hosted in London
A coalition of Northern mayors has been pressing for a multi-city Olympic and Paralympic bid, arguing the Games should be used to rebalance the distribution of major events and investment away from London.
Burnham has said it would not be âfair or rightâ for London to host the Olympics for a fourth time and has backed a Northern Games as âwhat Britain needs right nowâ.
First meeting of No 10 North
The meeting in which Burnham discussed his Menâs World Cup plans was the first virtual âsituation roomâ held through No 10 North. This is his new base for bringing Whitehall and local leaders together and was focused on giving mayors more power, expertise and resources to deliver investment in their areas.
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3 min read
Mayors could hand out tax rebates under Burnham devolution plans
2 min read
politics
Inside the UKâs youth unemployment capital
On the surface, the Birmingham suburb of Erdington seems like a typical small town, with a handful of pubs and a somewhat bustling centre complete with a Greggs and a B&M.
The nationâs Neet blackspot
Erdington, near Birmingham, has the highest rate of young people not in education, employment or training (Neet) in the country.
16.2 per cent of 16- to 24-year-olds are on unemployment benefits.
The national average is just 5.7 per cent.
What young people told us
It makes me feel worthless. I spend two or three hours a day looking for work online, and then Iâll spend another two hours going out handing CVs every day
Will Butler, 18, finished college in July
Young people overlooked
Companies donât really want to hire young people⊠they want to hire the person with the most experience
Lewis McKeirnan, 18
Businesses struggling too
But small business owners in Erdington told The i Paper they could hardly afford to pay their own salaries, let alone take on a young trainee.
Kamlesh Bali, who runs a newsagent, said she and her husband work from 6am to 10pm, seven days a week, because they cannot afford to take on another member of staff. âWhat we take in, itâs very hard for us, and to pay a wage as well, we struggle as it is as a small shop,â she said.
Why talk of an early election isn't going away
5 min read
Exclusive
Burnham plots bid to host men's World Cup in the UK
4 min read
What Government is doing
Ministers have chosen Birmingham and Solihull as one of six pilot locations for its Jobs Guarantee programme, helping 275 young people into subsidised work placements.
Ministers are also expanding their nationwide Youth Guarantee, with a ÂŁ2.5bn package including 300,000 new work and training placements for young people and financial incentives of up to ÂŁ3,000 for employers who hire and train eligible young jobseekers.
Artifical Intelligence
English is lit! Great Expectations rewritten by AI in Gen Z slang
âI call myself Pip. Itâs not a name with much rizzâ
One of the great classics, written by Charles Dickens, has been modernised â but itâs not aimed at children studying the text in class.
Bare Expectations
The Dickens classic has been fed into the AI model Claude Opus 4 to produce âBare Expectationsâ.
The shortened adaption uses the slang of teenagers today, using words like âickâ and âdripâ.
It was made by Tesco Mobile, in partnership with author Chloe Combi, to help parents better understand their children and keep them safe online.
It was also read as an audio book by Allan Mustafa, from Kurupt FM.
Classic for the modern age
Youâd think the best MC in the galaxy would know all the latest slang, and I do. If any kid tells you otherwise, theyâre lying. Any words I donât know are just not cool enough for me to care about!
Allan Mustafa, MC Grindah from Kurupt FM, told Retail Times.
A closer look at the detail
But 77 per cent of parents worry about their online safety. One in four parents felt unprepared when giving their child their first phone. More than half are confused by their childâs language at least once a week.
But campaigners say the best way to keep children safe online is by not giving them a smartphone in the first place.
immigration
Are Channel crossing numbers down?
The French authorities have become more âeffectiveâ at stopping migrants crossing in dangerous small boats across the Channel, the UK Government has said.
What do the figures tell us?
The figures compared to last year
5%
The increase in the number of small boats intercepted in the last three months compared with last year.
The Home Office said, citing French figures, that since April, 61 per cent of small boats have been intercepted.
ÂŁ500m
The deal agreed by the UK and France in April.
This includes ÂŁ161m in performance-based targets.
Channel crisis
Interceptions
In the past few weeks, three boats were stopped â two of which were at sea.
Numbers falling
Some 15,897 migrants have crossed the Channel, 43 per cent down on the same period last year.
Mega-dinghy
Last month, a record 165 migrants reached the UK in a single boat.
âAlready having an impactâ
âPeople smugglers should be in no doubt, weâre taking down their operations, seizing their equipment and breaking their business model for good,â said Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood.
How the Home Office bypassed local councils to expand two immigration centres
3 min read
A source familiar with the discussions said the bid was raised as part of talks on âstadium regenerationâ.
Hosting the worldâs biggest football tournament would form part of his push to make the north a destination for global sport â an agenda that also includes plans for a Northern Olympics and a bid to bring the 2035 Ryder Cup to Bolton.
The next available World Cup is in 2038, followed by tournaments in 2042 and 2046. Fifa has yet to begin the formal process for awarding the 2038 tournament, and the Government has not said whether its ambitions are focused on the earliest available opportunity or a bid further into the future. A bid for the 2042 tournament seems the most likely due to Fifa rules.
The i Paper understands that formal discussions are yet to take place with footballâs governing bodies. The UK is already the sole bidder for the Womenâs World Cup for 2035, with the hosts of that tournament set to be confirmed in November.
The World Cup plan is being considered alongside the previously reported ambition to bring the Olympics to the north, possibly in 2040, with Burnham understood to be pursuing both projects as part of a wider push to attract major sporting events, investment and tourism to the regions.
Burnham has already made clear just how strongly he feels about the UKâs absence from the tournament. Earlier this month, he agreed that it was âinsaneâ that the country that invented modern football has hosted the menâs World Cup only once, in 1966.
âIt makes you wonder whether the authorities at the European and global level have something against us,â he told Ellis Platten, host of the Away Days podcast.
âThe country that invented the game, youâd think we would have had a bit more of that attention.â
His frustration is rooted partly in personal experience. As culture secretary under former prime minister Gordon Brown, Burnham was involved in Englandâs failed bid for the 2018 World Cup, which was awarded to Russia after England received just two votes from Fifaâs 22-strong executive committee.
He has since become an outspoken critic of footballâs governing bodies. In recent weeks he has called Fifa president Gianni Infantino the âwrong manâ to lead the organisation and attacked plans to sell a stake in a new commercial business built around Fifaâs competitions.
That proposal was subsequently abandoned after a furious backlash from European football authorities.
The latest World Cup thinking is closely linked to Burnhamâs other major sporting ambition to bring the Olympics to the north.
A coalition of northern mayors has been pressing for a multi-city Olympic and Paralympic bid, arguing that the Games should be used to rebalance the distribution of major events and investment away from London.
Burnham has said it would not be âfair or rightâ for London to host the Olympics for a fourth time and has backed a Northern Games as âwhat Britain needs right nowâ. Northern leaders have argued that much of the infrastructure is already in place and that a Games could accelerate investment and regeneration across a region of around 15 million people.
Burnham is already backing the bid to bring the Ryder Cup to Bolton and is enthusiastic about Euro 2028, which will be hosted across the UK and Ireland.
A source close to the Prime Minister said: âHe is behind the Olympic bid and was the driving force in persuading us to back the bid to bring the Ryder Cup to Bolton.
âHeâs excited about the Euros 28, which weâre hosting.â
The source said Burnham was keen to support hospitality and tourism, although the detail of how a World Cup bid would fit into that had not yet been worked out.
The hurdles Burnham would face to host World Cup
Kat Lucas, Football News Editor
The Prime Ministerâs proposal already faces a major stumbling block. Fifaâs rotation rules prevent countries from a continental federation â such as Uefa, which governs European football â hosting a World Cup if another nation from that continent has hosted either of the previous two tournaments.
The 2030 edition is already being co-hosted by Spain, Portugal and Morocco under a joint bid from Uefa and the Confederation of African Football, with additional matches held in South America to mark 100 years since the first World Cup. That would appear to rule out a UK bid until 2042, but Fifa can make an exception if no other valid bids are made â with nations having to prove they meet specific requirements around finances, stadiums and other infrastructure.
As it stands, only the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football â which hosted this summerâs tournament â and the Oceania Football Confederation would be eligible.
Australia are seen as strong contenders for 2038 after pulling out of the 2034 bidding process, which effectively allowed Saudi Arabia a free run as the sole bidder.
Burnham has called on current Fifa president Gianni Infantino to resign, but the governing body would be under new leadership by the mid-2030s regardless due to limits on the number of terms allowed.
A UK bid for 2042 would be more realistic but the process has not yet begun for nations to express an interest and hosts would be unlikely to be appointed until well into the 2030s.
A Government source said: ââThe UK is committed to delivering world-class major sporting events with pride, with the Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes Grands DĂ©parts 2027 and UEFA EURO 2028 secured, and active bids for the 2029 World Athletics Championships and 2035 Womenâs World Cup.
âAs the Prime Minister has made clear, we will continue to pursue sporting events that bring communities together, drive regional growth and create jobs across the country.â
The World Cup idea was raised against the backdrop of a broader push by Burnham to put mayors at the centre of decisions on regional growth.
Fridayâs meeting was the first virtual âsituation roomâ held through No 10 North, his new base for bringing Whitehall and local leaders together and was focused on giving mayors more power, expertise and resources to deliver investment in their areas.
close Cancel email WhatsApp link share Share bookmark Save
Andy Burnham is exploring a bid to host the menâs World Cup in the UK, alongside plans for a Northern Olympics, The i Paper can reveal.
The move would bring the World Cup back to the UK for the first time since England hosted in 1966 and forms part of a growing push by Burnham to use major sporting events to drive investment, tourism and regeneration beyond London.
Burnham told colleagues at a Friday morning meeting at No 10 North in Manchester that he is looking at how Britain could host the tournament and is already in talks with the nationâs footballing bodies about how a campaign could be delivered.
Shorts
politics
Footballâs coming home? Burnham plots UK World Cup bid
The move would bring the World Cup back to the UK for the first time since England hosted in 1966.
Burnham bids for the North
Menâs World Cup 2038
Burnham told colleagues at a Friday morning meeting at No 10 North he is planning a World Cup bid, The i Paper can reveal.
Plans are underway
He said he is already in talks with the nationâs footballing bodies about how to run the campaign.
Prioritising the North
He also wants to put on a âNorthern Olympicsâ and bring the 2035 Ryder Cup to Bolton.
The UK has only hosted the World Cup once
It makes you wonder whether the authorities at the European and global level have something against us. The country that invented the game, youâd think we would have had a bit more of that attention
Andy Burnham told the Away Days podcast
It would ânot be fairâ for the Olympics to be hosted in London
A coalition of Northern mayors has been pressing for a multi-city Olympic and Paralympic bid, arguing the Games should be used to rebalance the distribution of major events and investment away from London.
Burnham has said it would not be âfair or rightâ for London to host the Olympics for a fourth time and has backed a Northern Games as âwhat Britain needs right nowâ.
First meeting of No 10 North
The meeting in which Burnham discussed his Menâs World Cup plans was the first virtual âsituation roomâ held through No 10 North. This is his new base for bringing Whitehall and local leaders together and was focused on giving mayors more power, expertise and resources to deliver investment in their areas.
Exclusive
âHS2 liteâ to Manchester project revived
3 min read
Mayors could hand out tax rebates under Burnham devolution plans
2 min read
politics
Inside the UKâs youth unemployment capital
On the surface, the Birmingham suburb of Erdington seems like a typical small town, with a handful of pubs and a somewhat bustling centre complete with a Greggs and a B&M.
The nationâs Neet blackspot
Erdington, near Birmingham, has the highest rate of young people not in education, employment or training (Neet) in the country.
16.2 per cent of 16- to 24-year-olds are on unemployment benefits.
The national average is just 5.7 per cent.
What young people told us
It makes me feel worthless. I spend two or three hours a day looking for work online, and then Iâll spend another two hours going out handing CVs every day
Will Butler, 18, finished college in July
Young people overlooked
Companies donât really want to hire young people⊠they want to hire the person with the most experience
Lewis McKeirnan, 18
Businesses struggling too
But small business owners in Erdington told The i Paper they could hardly afford to pay their own salaries, let alone take on a young trainee.
Kamlesh Bali, who runs a newsagent, said she and her husband work from 6am to 10pm, seven days a week, because they cannot afford to take on another member of staff. âWhat we take in, itâs very hard for us, and to pay a wage as well, we struggle as it is as a small shop,â she said.
Why talk of an early election isn't going away
5 min read
Exclusive
Burnham plots bid to host men's World Cup in the UK
4 min read
What Government is doing
Ministers have chosen Birmingham and Solihull as one of six pilot locations for its Jobs Guarantee programme, helping 275 young people into subsidised work placements.
Ministers are also expanding their nationwide Youth Guarantee, with a ÂŁ2.5bn package including 300,000 new work and training placements for young people and financial incentives of up to ÂŁ3,000 for employers who hire and train eligible young jobseekers.
Artifical Intelligence
English is lit! Great Expectations rewritten by AI in Gen Z slang
âI call myself Pip. Itâs not a name with much rizzâ
One of the great classics, written by Charles Dickens, has been modernised â but itâs not aimed at children studying the text in class.
Bare Expectations
The Dickens classic has been fed into the AI model Claude Opus 4 to produce âBare Expectationsâ.
The shortened adaption uses the slang of teenagers today, using words like âickâ and âdripâ.
It was made by Tesco Mobile, in partnership with author Chloe Combi, to help parents better understand their children and keep them safe online.
It was also read as an audio book by Allan Mustafa, from Kurupt FM.
Classic for the modern age
Youâd think the best MC in the galaxy would know all the latest slang, and I do. If any kid tells you otherwise, theyâre lying. Any words I donât know are just not cool enough for me to care about!
Allan Mustafa, MC Grindah from Kurupt FM, told Retail Times.
A closer look at the detail
But 77 per cent of parents worry about their online safety. One in four parents felt unprepared when giving their child their first phone. More than half are confused by their childâs language at least once a week.
But campaigners say the best way to keep children safe online is by not giving them a smartphone in the first place.
immigration
Are Channel crossing numbers down?
The French authorities have become more âeffectiveâ at stopping migrants crossing in dangerous small boats across the Channel, the UK Government has said.
What do the figures tell us?
The figures compared to last year
5%
The increase in the number of small boats intercepted in the last three months compared with last year.
The Home Office said, citing French figures, that since April, 61 per cent of small boats have been intercepted.
ÂŁ500m
The deal agreed by the UK and France in April.
This includes ÂŁ161m in performance-based targets.
Channel crisis
Interceptions
In the past few weeks, three boats were stopped â two of which were at sea.
Numbers falling
Some 15,897 migrants have crossed the Channel, 43 per cent down on the same period last year.
Mega-dinghy
Last month, a record 165 migrants reached the UK in a single boat.
âAlready having an impactâ
âPeople smugglers should be in no doubt, weâre taking down their operations, seizing their equipment and breaking their business model for good,â said Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood.
How the Home Office bypassed local councils to expand two immigration centres
3 min read
A source familiar with the discussions said the bid was raised as part of talks on âstadium regenerationâ.
Hosting the worldâs biggest football tournament would form part of his push to make the north a destination for global sport â an agenda that also includes plans for a Northern Olympics and a bid to bring the 2035 Ryder Cup to Bolton.
The next available World Cup is in 2038, followed by tournaments in 2042 and 2046. Fifa has yet to begin the formal process for awarding the 2038 tournament, and the Government has not said whether its ambitions are focused on the earliest available opportunity or a bid further into the future. A bid for the 2042 tournament seems the most likely due to Fifa rules.
The i Paper understands that formal discussions are yet to take place with footballâs governing bodies. The UK is already the sole bidder for the Womenâs World Cup for 2035, with the hosts of that tournament set to be confirmed in November.
The World Cup plan is being considered alongside the previously reported ambition to bring the Olympics to the north, possibly in 2040, with Burnham understood to be pursuing both projects as part of a wider push to attract major sporting events, investment and tourism to the regions.
Burnham has already made clear just how strongly he feels about the UKâs absence from the tournament. Earlier this month, he agreed that it was âinsaneâ that the country that invented modern football has hosted the menâs World Cup only once, in 1966.
âIt makes you wonder whether the authorities at the European and global level have something against us,â he told Ellis Platten, host of the Away Days podcast.
âThe country that invented the game, youâd think we would have had a bit more of that attention.â
His frustration is rooted partly in personal experience. As culture secretary under former prime minister Gordon Brown, Burnham was involved in Englandâs failed bid for the 2018 World Cup, which was awarded to Russia after England received just two votes from Fifaâs 22-strong executive committee.
He has since become an outspoken critic of footballâs governing bodies. In recent weeks he has called Fifa president Gianni Infantino the âwrong manâ to lead the organisation and attacked plans to sell a stake in a new commercial business built around Fifaâs competitions.
That proposal was subsequently abandoned after a furious backlash from European football authorities.
The latest World Cup thinking is closely linked to Burnhamâs other major sporting ambition to bring the Olympics to the north.
A coalition of northern mayors has been pressing for a multi-city Olympic and Paralympic bid, arguing that the Games should be used to rebalance the distribution of major events and investment away from London.
Burnham has said it would not be âfair or rightâ for London to host the Olympics for a fourth time and has backed a Northern Games as âwhat Britain needs right nowâ. Northern leaders have argued that much of the infrastructure is already in place and that a Games could accelerate investment and regeneration across a region of around 15 million people.
Burnham is already backing the bid to bring the Ryder Cup to Bolton and is enthusiastic about Euro 2028, which will be hosted across the UK and Ireland.
A source close to the Prime Minister said: âHe is behind the Olympic bid and was the driving force in persuading us to back the bid to bring the Ryder Cup to Bolton.
âHeâs excited about the Euros 28, which weâre hosting.â
The source said Burnham was keen to support hospitality and tourism, although the detail of how a World Cup bid would fit into that had not yet been worked out.
The hurdles Burnham would face to host World Cup
Kat Lucas, Football News Editor
The Prime Ministerâs proposal already faces a major stumbling block. Fifaâs rotation rules prevent countries from a continental federation â such as Uefa, which governs European football â hosting a World Cup if another nation from that continent has hosted either of the previous two tournaments.
The 2030 edition is already being co-hosted by Spain, Portugal and Morocco under a joint bid from Uefa and the Confederation of African Football, with additional matches held in South America to mark 100 years since the first World Cup. That would appear to rule out a UK bid until 2042, but Fifa can make an exception if no other valid bids are made â with nations having to prove they meet specific requirements around finances, stadiums and other infrastructure.
As it stands, only the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football â which hosted this summerâs tournament â and the Oceania Football Confederation would be eligible.
Australia are seen as strong contenders for 2038 after pulling out of the 2034 bidding process, which effectively allowed Saudi Arabia a free run as the sole bidder.
Burnham has called on current Fifa president Gianni Infantino to resign, but the governing body would be under new leadership by the mid-2030s regardless due to limits on the number of terms allowed.
A UK bid for 2042 would be more realistic but the process has not yet begun for nations to express an interest and hosts would be unlikely to be appointed until well into the 2030s.
A Government source said: ââThe UK is committed to delivering world-class major sporting events with pride, with the Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes Grands DĂ©parts 2027 and UEFA EURO 2028 secured, and active bids for the 2029 World Athletics Championships and 2035 Womenâs World Cup.
âAs the Prime Minister has made clear, we will continue to pursue sporting events that bring communities together, drive regional growth and create jobs across the country.â
The World Cup idea was raised against the backdrop of a broader push by Burnham to put mayors at the centre of decisions on regional growth.
Fridayâs meeting was the first virtual âsituation roomâ held through No 10 North, his new base for bringing Whitehall and local leaders together and was focused on giving mayors more power, expertise and resources to deliver investment in their areas.
close Cancel email WhatsApp link share Share bookmark Save
Related Coverage
- Andy Burnham plots bid for Britain to host World Cup as he eyes tourism boost â The Independent
- Andy Burnham wants UK to bid for 2042 Fifa World Cup â The Times
- Burnham in talks over UK bid to host World Cup â The Telegraph
- World Cup coming home? England prepares potential bid to host 2038 or 2042 â Yahoo Sports
