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LONDON : FIFA vice-president Jack Warner vowed he will fight to stop England from hosting the 2018 World Cup, in an astonishing attack to be broadcast Saturday.
Warner told BBC World Service radio England was an "irritant" which had a minimal impact on world football and was universally hated in Europe.
The president of CONCACAF, football's governing body in North and Central America and the Caribbean, laid into England and its chances of hosting the World Cup for the first time since 1966.
"If by chance, in 2018, the World Cup were to go to Europe, I'm quite sure, with the English luck as it is, they won't get it," the 64-year-old said.
"It'll be Italy, Spain, or it might even be France. Nobody in Europe likes England. England -- who invented the sport -- has never had any impact on world football.
"England at no time has had the love and support of Europe. For Europe, England is an irritant."
World Cup host countries are chosen by a vote from the representatives of FIFA's executive committee. Football's global governing body is reviewing its decision to rotate the World Cup through different continents beyond 2014.
It is expected FIFA will approve a format which only precludes the continents which held the previous two World Cup -- in the case of 2018, Africa and South America -- from bidding again.
England are expected to launch an official bid to stage the tournament early next year, with the government already indicating its support and appointing former sports minister Richard Caborn as World Cup ambassador.
Warner sees any England bid as being in a direct battle with one from a CONCACAF country.
"There are moves to give it to England. I must fight that," he vowed.
"I really don't believe that we should just lay down and play dead to anyone who wants to take the World Cup from CONCACAF.
"I know in FIFA there are those persons who believe the rules should be changed to satisfy Europe but I tell you this we shall fight it to the very end."
Speaking in his native Trinidad, Warner also slammed Manchester United's recent signing of nine-year-old wonderkid Rhain Davis, whose family have quit Australia for north-west England.
"It's obscene and most absurd," said Warner.
"And we have to fight that and put laws in place to prevent those things. That is almost a kind of football slavery... and we have to understand that slavery by any form is slavery."
FIFA's executive committee in December reprimanded Warner -- but decided not to impose any sanctions -- following the illicit resale of tickets at the 2006 World Cup.
Warner and his son were accused of making money through the illegal sales in an auditor's report, which said Daryan Warner made about one million dollars from resales of tickets through his travel agency. Resales were illegal under FIFA contracts.
The CONCACAF chief of 17 years vehemently denied any wrong-doing.
"I have never sold a World Cup ticket in my life. I sleep very soundly at nights. My heart is clear. My conscience is clear," he said.
- AFP /ls
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