FA Chair Greg Clarke admitted on Tuesday that Brexit "could damage England's hopes of staging the World Cup or European Championship," according to Ben Rumsby of the London TELEGRAPH. Clarke claimed it "may even be forced to enter into a joint bid" with another European Union country following Great Britain’s vote to withdraw as a member state. Clarke revealed one of his main objectives during his time with the FA was "to establish whether Brexit had damaged its standing" within FIFA or UEFA. Clarke said, "I was mulling on the way back on the plane from Slovakia what Brexit does to our chances of a future tournament because I never had any expectations of a new tournament [bid] in my tenure. The timescales are too long but you have to build a platform for the person after you or the person after them to be able to harvest some goodwill and get a tournament because this country deserves a tournament. But we are leaving the EU. Can we count on EU support or will they vote for EU nations in the future? I don’t know the answer to that but we have to get to the bottom of that." England has been "linked with bids for the 2028 European Championship and 2030 World Cup," and Clarke added, "I need to find out before we waste a lot of money" (TELEGRAPH, 9/6).
