Speaking over the weekend to UK broadcaster Channel 4, president Lula said, “I think now is the time for the UK to host a FIFA Cup again. England has the competence…and the strength to win a bid for the FIFA Cup.”
Also at the weekend, Jack Warner, who recently criticised the English bid, met British prime minister Gordon Brown in Trinidad, the FIFA vice president’s home nation and host of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
“It was an exceptionally good meeting – it was the best case I have heard for a long time about the World Cup being in England,” Warner said, according to the Associated Press.
“He said, and I agreed with him, that England has the best infrastructure to stage the tournament and that, after a 52-year gap, this is England's time.”
Warner had warned last month that rival bidders Spain and Russia were stealing a march on England in the early stages of the bidding.
Fifa will choose the 2018 host in December 2010.
