If Tottenham's magnificent new stadium doesn't help clinch a World Cup bid for England then not much else ever will.
Certainly not a crass and politically correct re-branding of the FA, who are about to become the English FA so as to avoid offending the tender sensibilities of foreign football politicians who seem to hold it against us that the game started here.
The change of name is apparently intended to help smooth the path towards possibly bringing the tournament to these shores in 2030. A tentative joint British and Irish bid has already been given early Government backing.
There are dozens of good reasons why that should happen; why it should have come to England in 2018, in fact, before Fifa corruption and empire-building demolished a perfectly good FA bid on a humiliating day in Zurich eight years beforehand.
Now the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium - the fabulous new crown jewel in N17 - could help a successful new attempt to bring the event here for the first time since 1966.
It’s that good it deserves to play host to the biggest competition of them all. That would of course be allocated to Wembley, but a European final, at least, must be a possibility at some point.
Juventus got the Europa League final in 2014 within three seasons of the opening of their new ground. Lyon’s new HQ got the Europa League final last season within two years of opening its doors. Although Uefa prefer stadia with a capacity of 70,000 or more for the Champions League final, the new Tottenham’s 62,062 beats Lyon’s 59,000. So it’s highly feasible.
Yet Spurs have created such a good show-case of what can be achieved here that it should surely be a major selling point of any World Cup bid - although there will be a strong case, too, for the joint hopes of Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay in the centenary year of the first tournament in Uruguay.
Spain, Portugal and Morocco have a tri-nation scheme taking shape as well.
Tottenham’s new home – they haven’t conceded a goal there yet and face relegated Huddersfield there on Saturday - would be 11 years old by 2030.
But it looks like they have built themselves a new home that is going to be impressive and state-of-the art for a long while to come yet.
Apparently, the British and Irish bid must not be over-loaded in favour of London venues.
But taking the London-centric view for arguments sake, the competition will certainly involve at least 48 teams by 2030. They're pushing for that in Qatar in 2022 already. So it could be even bigger a further eight years on. Never rule out anything so gargantuan and bloated in football’s corporate age.
Therefore, it is quite feasible for World Cup matches to be staged at Tottenham, Arsenal, Chelsea, Wembley and, possibly, even the benighted London Stadium of West Ham.
Brentford and Wimbledon are opening brand new homes in the next 18 months. Crystal Palace have issued detailed plans for a new Selhurst Park.
Given the rate at which Fifa expand anything which makes money and inflates their power, we may need every stadium – in and out of London - that we can lay our hands on to fit in a World Cup at the end of the next decade.
The proposed list of venues for 2030 here includes these superb stages outside of London; Old Trafford, Anfield, the Cardiff Principality Stadium, the Etihad, Villa Park, St James’ Park, Sunderland’s Stadium of Light, Celtic Park, Ibrox, Hampden Park, Windsor Park in Belfast and the Aviva Stadium in Dublin.
All fabulous, and many are home to some of the biggest and most historic football clubs in the world.
The English venues listed were all part of the failed 2018 bid. But the problem back then partly seemed to be that they were all already built.
No multi-billion pound construction projects were part of the bidding process then. So not much scope for what Fifa did so well back then, if you get the drift.
Neither did it cut much ice with the old lizards doing the back-room deal that no bid in 2018 matched Fifa’s stated wish for diversity and multi-culturalism as well as England’s.
There has been a mini-World Cup taking place in London in most international breaks for years now because of the city’s global, multi-layered nature.
Brazil have played at Arsenal’s Emirates no fewer than eight times. Australia 3 Ecuador 4 in 2014 was one of three non-English internationals played at Millwall’s Den. Ghana have played three friendlies at Brentford’s Griffin Park. Craven Cottage has hosted Nigeria, Ireland, South Korea, Australia and Ghana in recent years.
All of this should be part of a compelling attempt to win 2030.
Yet the wider point here really is to underline how London is now blessed with so many top level arenas that it is now surely the sporting capital of the world, with the finals stages of Euro 2020 at Wembley next year.
Add Wimbledon, Twickenham, Lord’s, The Oval, the 02 Arena – one of boxing’s major global hubs and an annual host to the NBA - and the other facilities in the Olympic Park and you have to agree that whether it’s politically correct or not, the capital’s sporting panorama is vast, ground-breaking and growing.
The opening of the Tottenham ground has put the focus on that fact. By the way, did we remind you that it also has an NFL pitch and will stage two games this autumn? And that’s after the planet’s two most famous baseball teams, the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox have met in a Major League series at the London Stadium this summer.
All we need now is an England team that might win the World Cup? Just now, that doesn’t seem such a far-fetched as it once did, either.
