The Inspection Committee of the FIFA disembarks in Belgium and The Netherlands on Monday. During a period of three days, officials of football's international governing body will explore the bid of the two neighboring countries to host the World Cup in 2018. While the Dutch are still very keen on organizing this big event, the Belgians' enthusiasm has hit a new low.

Besides the Dutch-Belgian tandem, countries like Russia, Great Britain, Australia, Qatar and United States have also entered a bid for the World Cup in 2018. Spain and Portugal join forces as well to obtain the honor. Belgium and the Netherlands have some strong opponents.

The Dutch population is, after their very successful participation in the World Cup in South-Africa, very enthusiastic about the bid. In Belgium, the first negative comments emerge. 

It's not that Belgium doesn't like to cooperate with the Netherlands. The joint collaboration for the European Championship in 2000 proved to be satisfactory and sparked the initial enthusiasm for the World Cup bid.

It is also not really a big problem that organizing a high-profile event like the World Cup costs too much money. Well, it does absorb a considerable amount of the tax payers' money, to say the least.

But the big stumbling stone is that FIFA demands an exemption of taxes on its profits. The Belgian population is not opposed to offering free accommodation, separate lanes on  highways for FIFA officials and even building seven additional stadiums on its tiny territory, but after all this effort they want a piece of the action.

Moreover, the five official sponsors of the event, including ING, KLM and Price Waterhouse Cooper, are Dutch. Belgium has no commercial input, but will use indirect government funding - a donation by the Belgian National Lottery.

The displeasure about the tax exemption could be short-sighted. The Belgian Planning Bureau, that forecasts the economic growth, calculated that the World Cup would fetch 1.15 billion euro over a period of eight years. The event would furthermore create 450 to 750 jobs in the initial phase and 4,000 to 8,000 in 2018.

But the goodwill of the Belgians towards soccer has come to an end in these harsh economic times.  The animo for the sport has sunk and not only because the Red Devils, Belgium's national soccer team, failed to qualify for the World Cup since 2006.

Soccer is already the most subsidized sport in Belgium. Every year approximately one hundred million euros flow to sixteen clubs and their players. Other disciplines, like national sport number one cycle racing, are in desperate need for some funding.

Because 'public support' is one of the criteria FIFA looks at, it could be possible that the Belgian population will torpedo the bid so highly supported by their government and their neighboring country. It doesn't even matter that organizing the World Cup means that the Red Devils could immediately enter the competition.

 Bie van Giel

Photo: ISIFA