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From: Guardian.co.uk by Paul Lauener

LONDON, Nov 19 (Reuters) - Britain will not let the financial crisis stop it bidding for the world's biggest sporting events such as the soccer World Cup, former Sports Minister Richard Caborn said.

Caborn, government ambassador for England's 2018 World Cup bid, dismissed London 2012 Olympics minister Tessa Jowell's comments last week suggesting Britain would not have made its bid if it had known about the economic downturn.
"I think you've got to take the long term view on things," Caborn told a conference on the crisis in London.

"We started in 2001 with a bid for 2012. We started two years ago talking about the (soccer) World Cup, which is in 2018. If you actually are judging by circumstances at any given point then you'd never ever make a bid," he said on Tuesday.
Britain is to host some of the world's biggest sporting events over the next 10 years and Caborn said the benefits of this "decade of sport" are "way beyond just a straight balance sheet.

"In 2009 we've got the 20/20 (Cricket) World Cup, 2010 we've got the Women's Rugby World Cup, 2012 we've got the Olympics, 2013 we're bidding for the Rugby League World Cup, 2014 we've got the Commonwealth Games in Scotland, 2015 we're bidding for the Rugby Union World Cup, in 2018 we're bidding for the football World Cup as well.
"The impact on the nation is huge," he said. The author of a report into how the global financial crisis was affecting sport agreed at the conference that investment in sport was "money well spent".

"The fundamental issue for me is should that money have been spent on the Olympics or should it have been spent on something else?" said Simon Chadwick, Professor of Sport Business at Coventry University.

Chadwick's report, Sport in the Downturn, suggests top level sports like Premier League football with a global brand appeal and investment from the Middle East would be more protected from recession than pursuits like darts and badminton.