Letters: World Cup error

England's dismal failure to even get past the first round of voting in the bid to host the 2018 World Cup (your report, 3 December) perhaps highlights a problem in the UK as a whole in that we are somehow blinded by "celebrity status". England's presentation, in the main, was fronted by two "celebrities" and David Cameron.

I've no reason to doubt that those behind the scenes put forward as good as case as they could but misguidedly perhaps thought their "celebrities" would win the day.

In my opinion "celebrity status" has reached an obnoxious level in the UK as many many folk put people up on a pedestal and hang on to every word they utter.

Seems those in Fifa who decided the venues for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups were not influenced by them one iota.

RT Smith

Braeside Terrace

Aberdeen

So, the London government's bid for the 2018 World Cup has fallen flat on its face, and the media is rounding on the Russians and Fifa in a frenzy of allegations. As we shiver here at home we would remember that a great deal of the natural gas that keeps our houses from freezing comes from Russia.

Our government(s) must stop indulging themselves in self- aggrandising, pointless and expensive attempts to play big men on the international stage, retreat to the boring business of running the country, figure out what we are going to live on in the decades to come, and how we are going to keep warm without being so dependent on capricious extraterritorial energy sources.

(Dr) Michael J Gray

Eastfield Road

Dumfries

After England's failure in its bid to secure the 2018 football World Cup the finger of blame is being pointed at the BBC Panorama programme with its claims of corruption within Fifa, aired just three days before the vote.

The irony is, of course, that with the England bid, although vastly superior in all respects to the others, attracting only one vote other than that of its own representative, Panorama's allegations have been vindicated completely.

Walter J Allan

Colinton Mains Drive

Edinburgh