Im just wondering what everyone else thought on this.

IMO The UK, led by London, will very soon be capital of the world in terms of sport. We have the olympics 2012, Glasgow is planning for the 2014 commonwealth games, it is believed that we are planning a bid for the 2018 world cup.

I Think in 10 years people will see that the UK is back stronger than ever in all fronts, and this will be seen through our sport.

What do you all think?

its all well and good hosting everything, but we need to start winning things to be called that, rugby aside, we havent been champions of a major sport for a while, and our olympic performace isnt setting the world alight. hopefully things will start to change in this regard (next summer perhaps. :) )

Yes definitely and here's why:

Football is the world's biggest sport and the English Premiership has the highest global TV audiences of any national league. English sides also perform well in the Champions League. This is much more important than the performance of the England team. Brazil is the world champion but much less the centre of football than England. The World Cup only comes around once every four years wheras the Premiership and Champions League are watched worldwide week in week out. Wembley will be the crowning glory.

Rugby is still largely a British and old Commonwealth sport though countries like France and Italy have broadened it somewhat. England is the historic home of rugby and the country that, culturally speaking, "connects" Europe and the old Commonwealth. Right now England are world champions.

Cricket is one of the biggest sports in the world. I wouldn't necessarly call England the centre of cricket as Australia, India, and the West Indies also have strong cricket traditions but, as with football and rugby, England has the added prestige of being the source country.

Every year, at Wimbledon, we host the world's most prestigious and coveted tennis tournament. I think Wimbledon has the highest global TV ratings of the grand slams too. It doesn't matter than English tennis is short of world class talent.

Boxing is centred in the US but there have been a lot of great British world champions. Lennox Lewis has one of the greatest records in heavyweight history.

Golf is a British (Scottish) invention. The Masters in Augusta is probably the most prestigious tounament thse days and three of the four grandslams are American but The Open (British Open to Americans) is very prestigious and St Andrews is one of the world's most famous golf clubs.

Formula 1 is owned by Briton Bernie Ecclestone. There has always been a lot of British talent in Formula 1.

London will be the first city in the world to host the Olympics for the third time.

the aussies will argue about this...but who invented most of the games they are good at??!!

Think about it -
We're in the middle of a Golden age of sport...
We hold the rugby world cup.
We hold the ashes.
We're winning more medals in the Olympics that any time in recent history.
Our Paralympians were second in the medal table in Athens
We quailified for the World Cup top of our group and went on to beat Argentina.
:cheer:

However we've a little way to go in proving our ability to host events.
The 2002 Commonwealth games showed we could. We've also hosted all sorts of smaller events, Paralympic Word Cup, World Cycling Champoinships, World Gymnastics etc. Not to mention Wimbledon and the annual events
But the utter mess of Wembley Stadium and the World Athlectics Champoinships shows that there is a way to go. We'll see in 2012.

We invented most of the sports because we ruled half the planet at one point!

the aussies will argue about this...but who invented most of the games they are good at??!!But Australia is definitely not the centre of sport. Football is the world's biggest sport and Australia is nowhere in football. Every week people from all over the world tune in to watch the English Premiership and watch English clubs in the Champions League. Also how many Australians are there in Formula 1? How many world boxing champions has Australia produced? Have any Australians ever run the 100m in less than 10 seconds?

But the utter mess of Wembley Stadium and the World Athlectics Champoinships shows that there is a way to go. We'll see in 2012.What on earth is a mess about Wembley? Its development may have been delayed but that's a British affair. No-one else cares about it. Right now the new stadium is progressing well and approaches completion. It will be the best and most famous stadium in world sport. Wembley is very much a feather in Britain's cap.

And the World Athletics Championships is a complete non-event. I couldn't tell you the location of any previous hosts of that championship and I doubt the average person on the street could either.

What on earth is a mess about Wembley? Its development may have been delayed but that's a British affair. No-one else cares about it. Right now the new stadium is progressing well and approaches completion. It will be the best and most famous stadium in world sport. Wembley is very much a feather in Britain's cap.

And the World Athletics Championships is a complete non-event. I couldn't tell you the location of any previous hosts of that championship and I doubt the average person on the street could either.

Wasn't a go at London! Just on the countries ability to host big events.
Wembley is years late and over-budget. Now we hear that it might not be ready for the next FA Cup final. That's just the first one that came to mind - that's all.
The World Athletics Championships is a major event. Get aorund 8 million viewers on TV in the UK alone and normally fills any stadia that hosts it.

^ But it was the political decision to go ahead with Wembley that was delayed - not the construction - and the stadium is only just behind schedule and is not far over budget. In any case the budget is primarily a concern for the contractor who will make a loss on the project - not the nation as a whole. And the timing is not important. If it's not ready for this year's FA Cup then so what? It can just wait for the next one in 2007.

Yes, thing are going OK now and it's looking rather cool.
But it wasn't always like that:

From BBC News (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1309026.stm)

From BBC Sport (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/in_depth/2001/search_for_a_new_wembley/1305893.stm)

But on a whole as a country we are getting our act together.

The Ashes and the Rugby World Cup
One Billion Chinamen couldn't give a fuck.

^ It doesn't matter. The English Premiership and the Champions League are hugely popular there. David Beckham beats even Yao Ming as the most popular sportsman in China and football dominated a recent count of search engine results in China. England will likely be bidding against China for the 2018 World Cup which is unfortunate as they think they are just about the only country that could beat us. England is the home of football, sits in the best time zone, and Wembley will soon be football's greatest and most famous arena. However China is a huge and tempting new market for FIFA.

Think about it -
We're in the middle of a Golden age of sport...
We hold the rugby world cup.
We hold the ashes.
We're winning more medals in the Olympics that any time in recent history.
Our Paralympians were second in the medal table in Athens
We quailified for the World Cup top of our group and went on to beat Argentina.
:cheer:

However we've a little way to go in proving our ability to host events.
The 2002 Commonwealth games showed we could. We've also hosted all sorts of smaller events, Paralympic Word Cup, World Cycling Champoinships, World Gymnastics etc. Not to mention Wimbledon and the annual events
But the utter mess of Wembley Stadium and the World Athlectics Champoinships shows that there is a way to go. We'll see in 2012.

We invented most of the sports because we ruled half the planet at one point!


i bet you every building project in the world, this side of the millenium has been over-budget.

Don't forget, Scotland are the Elephant Polo world champions for the second year running!
PS: The Ashes are not as great as everyone make's out. :sleepy:

England will likely be bidding against China for the 2018 World Cup which is unfortunate as they think they are just about the only country that could beat us.....China is a huge and tempting new market for FIFA.

if that's true, england probably doesn't stand a chance. sepp blatter's recent decision to re-designate china as football's birthplace alludes to the massive public relations campaign fifa are currently pushing in the country. "look, china, here's another reason to love football - you actually invented it!"

the close proximity of japan - a country of 120 million and a growing market for football (i think baseball still tops the polls, but perhaps someone can correct me on that) will only add to the good work that was done in the region in 2002. it's fine for the promulgation of the beautiful game, but probably signals the demise of england's ambitions to actually host the event. why milk an established market (who'll tune into watch anyway) when you have 650m fresh consumers to introduce it to?

Nobody invented football, but soccer was certainly invented in England in the 19th Century. Soccer grew out of the various forms of football that had been played up and down the country (when legal!) whose only common factor was that they all involved moving a bladder/pig's head/stone/whatever to wherever it was that scored you a "goal".

To say that these raucous excuses for communal blood-letting were descended from a Chinese pastime in which people showed off their ability to kick something through a hole in a silk net is frankly absurd, especially since the net was a later innovation in soccer. It's a bit like rugby introducing the sin-bin and allowing a bit of padding, and some loon pointing out that a game involving a sin-bin and padding already existed in ice hockey, and therefore rugby was invented in Canada...!