New-found confidence can help England's 2018 World Cup bid

Tessa Jowell believes a sense of “national self-confidence” that has sprung from London’s 2012 Olympic victory could help an England bid for the 2018 World Cup.

The Football Association have confirmed they are pushing ahead with exploratory talks about a bid for the tournament – but have denied a report they will launch a ‘dry run’ for the 2014.

FA chief executive Brian Barwick has already made known they have identified the tournament in 2018 as a possible target and Jowell, the secretary of state with responsible for sport, believes the Olympic effect is important.

Jowell told journalists in London: “We are in a different place on the world stage now in relation to sport and the sense of national self-confidence about our ability to hold the world’s great sporting events is unbounded.

“We can host a World Cup, we can host a world athletics championships and other world-class sporting events on the back of the Olympics and I hope very much we do.

“It is impossible to launch a bid like this unless there is very clear and strong government support. The FA are quite rightly at a very early stage of taking soundings.”

FIFA have already said the 2014 World Cup will be held in South America under their rotation system, and the FA today denied a report saying Barwick had had talks with the Treasury about a 2014 bid.

An FA spokesman said: “Reports that the FA are planning to bid for the 2014 World Cup are inaccurate. Brian Barwick has not discussed this issue with Gordon Brown.

“The FA has said publicly that we are serious about a possible bid for the 2018 World Cup and FIFA president Sepp Blatter has also spoken very positively about the idea of the World Cup coming back to England that year.”

Blatter earlier this month said he would welcome a bid from “the homeland of football” for 2018.

Blatter told PA Sport: “I would say yes, they should bid – it is the homeland of football.

“They are building stadia and other facilities for the Olympics, Wembley is almost finished and maybe they would be used for a World Cup bid.”