Andrew Warshaw: England's 2018 World Cup bid is behind in last minute

England's campaign to stage the 2018 event comes to a nail-biting climax in Zurich this week but, unless they can make up considerable ground over the next four days, it looks increasingly likely they will be crying into their beer rather than knocking back the champagne on Thursday afternoon.

Just as the London 2012 Olympic campaign upset the odds down the final straight, so England's bid team hope to edge out Russia and Spain-Portugal (Holland-Belgium are the rank outsiders) when FIFA president Sepp Blatter opens the envelope announcing the hosts for both the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

Staging both ballots at the same time was always likely to be a recipe for conspiracy theories. Even Blatter himself has admitted that, in hindsight, it was a flawed decision, one made for purely financial and marketing reasons without any thought to the possible ramifications. No-one, however, could have anticipated the unprecedented corruption scandal that rocked football's world governing body and led to the suspensions of six officials, two of them voting executive committee members.

Just how that impacts on England's bid is the $64,000 question in what promises to be an almost unbearably tense build-up given that the World Cup is unlikely to come back to Europe for another 20 years. England's bid officials have done their utmost to distance themselves from the explosive allegations in the Sunday Times as well as the Panorama programme being screened tomorrow night which seems certain to heap even more embarrassment on FIFA and its veteran president.

• 2018: England's rivals

• The 2022 contenders

Eager not to be blamed for what many in FIFA believe was little more than entrapment, letters of appeasement were recently sent to each and every one of the remaining 22 FIFA exco members, preceded by a private hearing between Blatter and England bid chiefs Andy Anson and David Dein.

And yesterday, Prime Minister Cameron said: "Is it frustrating that Panorama's doing this programme a few days before? Of course it is. But it's a free country. I think FIFA will understand."

England 2018 are convinced they could have not have done much more to get the message across and that only politics now stands in their way.Unlike the 2006 campaign that was tarnished by "Football's Coming Home" arrogance, this one has been played out with a degree of humble correctness and supporters can only wait and hope that FIFA's highly-protective executive committee members vote according to England's undoubted capability to put on a financially lucrative and trouble-free tournament rather than shoot the messenger.

Dein, who has clocked up 116 flights and spent the equivalent of more than 17 days in the air as England's international bid president, admits there is still ground to be made up. With the candidate with fewest votes eliminated round by round, the strategy in Zurich will be securing enough support to squeeze through the first round, then pick up more votes to keep going.

From the start, England are counting on the support of the three Concacaf members from north and central America to go with the certain vote of FA chairman Geoff Thompson plus at least one more from Europe and maybe one from Asia. Then the plan will be to secure additional backing if, as expected, Holland and Belgium drop out early.

The hope is that whoever delivers England's 30-minute final presentation on Thursday morning will make a stronger impression that their rivals, not least Russia, for whom the likely appearance of prime minister Vladimir Putin is being viewed as a trump card to go with the country's strong legacy message of a first World Cup in eastern Europe together with unlimited financial backing.

"Maybe in certain cases we will not be their first choice but what we have to do is make sure we are their second choice when it comes to totting up," says the hugely well-connected Dein, the former FA and Arsenal vice-chairman. "You never know who may just change their minds at the last minute."

Dein's comments rekindled memories of the 2006 campaign when South Africa were odds-on favourites going into the final few hours of bidding, only for the New Zealand FIFA representative to mysteriously abstain and the Asian bloc to switch their votes to eventual winners Germany.

Dein added: "The bid initially, it's no secret, was troubled. I think we could have done without certain of the early own goals and I like to think we have overcome those."

"Having said that, we know there have been certain rumblings in the background on which I would say - and I use the word carefully - I think perhaps have been unhelpful. But you have to deal with it and move on.

"We can talk for as long as we like about stadia and training facilities, our transport, the passion of our fans. But there's only a certain number of times you can go round telling people. In the end it will come down to relationships and whether they think England is the right country to host it, not just the technical aspect. One's got to hope we've given them enough ammunition to vote for us.You can never tell with football politics."

Blatter is likely to announce the 2018 winners a few minutes before the 2022 host nation. Here, Japan and South Korea are rank outsiders with all the talk about a three-horse race. The US, hosts in 1994, will offer sold-out stadiums and a huge financial windfall for FIFA. Australia has a strong emotional appeal and a sports-mad public.

Then there is Qatar, whose officials are privately furious at persistent rumours of vote-trading collusion with Spain-Portugal

Qatar has produced a litany of facts and figures showing the kind of legacy that would be left behind in the Middle East were it to host.

It nevertheless seems inconceivable that the minuscule Gulf state, for all its financial muscle and innovative stadium cooling techniques, could win. Strange things have happened when it comes to World Cup bids. But not much stranger than that.