Work needed ahead of possible World Cup bid - PFA

England hosting the 2018 World Cup would inspire a whole generation – but players’ chief Gordon Taylor feels more must be done to safeguard the future of the national game.

The Government have compiled a feasibility study into staging the tournament in 11 years’ time, a move welcomed by the Football Association – which spent millions on a failed attempt to host the 2006 event.

There is, though, some way to go before any official decision will be taken by FIFA, the world governing body, as to which continent would host the competition in 2018 – with the next two being staged first by South Africa and then in South America.

Taylor, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association, is in no doubt of just what a World Cup would do for the game in this country.

However, he maintains changes must be made throughout English football’s structure to ensure long-term success at international level.

“I remember the overall beneficial affect the World Cup had here in 1966,” Taylor said.

“I hope England getting it again for 2018 would focus a lot of minds on the needs for us to give a big priority to international football and youth development programmes.

“The World Cup would be the sort of catalyst which would be needed to make people concentrate on the fact that the pool of players for England is contracting by the year, and for the need to work with schools, academies and centres of excellence to really develop a good quality squad of technically gifted young players.”

Taylor told PA Sport: “I am not sure whether it is just purely a question of funds at the moment – it is a matter of priorities. Currently in England we have probably got eight out of the top 20 richest clubs in Europe – but for a long time now our international success has not equated with the power of football that we have for the club system in this country.

“We need to work hard to redress that balance. There has got to be an incentive for clubs to bring through their own home-grown English players.”