ASEAN 2030 World Cup back of the net for Thailand and Indonesia but UK fumbles the ball?

Even with the confusion of the Thai elections now resolved for the moment with a PM Tu party and Pheu Thai and Future Forward opposition, the ASEAN Chair Summit last month, raised some interesting actions.

An ASEAN Space Agency is wise for weather satellites and 5G - surely an opportunity for UK/EU Space Agency support, and the new Australia Space Agency celebrating a slightly rusty first birthday at Woomera lauch site. Even the potential of a Cambodia Space Project banging the drum for a retooling of the ASEAN car industry with a Morlam or Kundrum inspirational ditty.

The crashed Australian car industry may even be galvanised again through Space Agency retooling its POTUS Trump missions to Mars and Europa. A woman on Mars by 2030 and space colonies of 3M people also factored in by the Bezos and Tesla and Branson space missions.

An ASEAN Military Medicine programme is realistic in USA DARPA terms as something of a sticking plaster over expanding military budgets and perhaps more useful in Sports Science (UK as a Sporting Superpower as Australian cricket now realise) - and VR and AR for Thai companies such as Toshiba and Mitsubishi, even True and AIS.

An ASEAN Culture Contest a twist on the Eurovision Song Contest karaoke or more crunchy UNESCO Cultural Heritage protection for say Morlam music of Isaan.

But perhaps most worthy of a Mexican Wave through ASEAN and indeed UK is the ASEAN agreement to bid for the 2034 Soccer World Cup. PM May this Summer seeming to concentrate on the cricket and jam rather than previous claims of the 2030 World Cup for the UK Home Nations.

The Brexit mess revealing a deep seam of amateurism in British politics and governance and with the shilly-shally of a World Cup 2030, the spectre of a Britain where its word is no longer its bond. With Khun Thanathorn in London again to detail Future Forward policy on conscription, military budgets and Thailand 4.0, could he stay on and run the place if Uncle Tu can't spare a half day each week?

But on the 2034 World Cup, ASEAN is on a sticky wicket initially after the shambles of the Hanoi Games of 2019 cancelled at the last minute or unravelling of TPP into more talks about talks froth.

### Big Ticket Vietnam infrastructure all at sea? ###

Indonesia wisely stepping in to wipe the egg off Vietnam's face for the Hanoi Games farce and now to lead on the World Cup.
Is Vietnam incapable of delivering big ticket infrastructure and social programmes?

Certainly the Vietnam Transport Minster wise to urge a hurry-up on rail developments: the PP-HCMC rail link surely to the fore. Even the relocation of Da Nang airport and Vinh deep sea port as a Haiphong #2 beyond ceremonial minuets over tea and biscuits.

The UK-Vietnam Strategic Dialogue more an endless dialogue rather than anything strategic or indeed deliverable as per those failed Hanoi Games rocking confidence in Vietnam trade and growth, perhaps as anything more than increased manufacture of Arsenal football shirts as a lead on UK Sports Diplomacy.

It would be nice to think that: viet nam doc lap thong nhat va xa hoi chu nghia muon nam, long live an independent reunified and socialist Vietnam would be a UK and Vietnam crucnhy deliverable beyond the steam off the tea cups.

Both the UK and Vietnamese people no doubt concerned at the delay and costs of mere meeting room hot air, even without Climate Change such as Mekong Delta floods.

Vietnam's HSBC Water initiatives perhaps a way forward beyond the Paracels for UK-VN naval cooperation - as well as supporting UK and Thai troops in South Sudan UN Peacekeeping and policing. A regiment of Vietnamese troops sat in barracks of no more use in Nha Trang than in Northampton.

And the chair of the Thai FA Committee Khun Somyat wise to highlight a similar GOWI get-on-with-it approach to the 2034 World Cup, but not to be hampered by 10 ASEAN members (11 with Timor by 2034? Even Papua and Solomons?) each wanting their piece of the football apple pie.

The Japan-Korea Cup and indeed four Home Nations of UK 2030 (5 with Eire or still 4 with a reunited Ulster and Eire by 2034?) sensible templates (and indeed USA, Canada, Mexico in 2026) for say a maximum of 3 ASEAN hosts: Indonesia, Thailand and Myanmar.

Yes, even rusty Myanmar with the 15 years to 2034 enough time to not just put the World Cup on the road to Mandalay, and stimulate the undernourished Myanmar soccer potential, but also build/redevelop the stadia with the Six Companies approach, and Kwai etc transport links. Even London Undergroud Metros that would be familiar to Oxford's Aung San Suu Kyi.

### Mind the gap in global rail and metro ###

And Berlin's Metro Station at Wittenbergplatz with a London transport gift of the station sign should surely be a template for UK Metro (Tube if you prefer) excellence and innovation from Buenos Aires to Buffalo and Tel Aviv to Taipei. UK design carving out the tunnels not just as Crossrail or SuperSewers but carriages and even Harry Beck's graphic design of the iconic Tube map used around the world.

Some corner of a foreign Metro station is already mapped out as forever England, but a London tube sign as Wittenbergplatz would be a nice flourish for further rail links.

The UNESCO Heritage site of Bagan an ideal backdrop for the new Beckham's and Messi's keepy-uppy photo-opportunities for the 2034 World Cup. As would, with my Sincerity Advertising football shirt on, backdrops (real not UK green screen film effects) of Indonesia's Bali beach soccer and Thailand's Royal Road temples near to the world-class Buriram Sports City (an E-Grand Prix motor race soon?) in Surin province.

Khum Somyat must surely be polishing his football boots at the Thai FA to alert the UK FA as the Home of Football, of the 2034 bid, not as the Thai proverb: Ao paeng nuan pai khai chaowang - coals to Newcastle or Kasetsart way, but rather deploying the full weight of UK FA and in FIFA, even Khun Tippy's Leicester FC Siamese Foxes and the Premier League and all 92 UK football clubs, for a successful bid way before 2034. And 2030.

While wiser heads in ASEAN such as Manila's dynamic Resilience Minister Karen Jimeno must be thinking of a battle for city bids to some extent, yet considering the potential in Display Events before and during the 2034 World Cup.

And any post-2034 legacy of stadia and Metro Manila infrastructure improvements that UK very successfully achieved after the 2012 London Olympics would be maximised even without marshalling ADB and AIIB or rather EU and OECD and EBRD support.

Plus ASEAN not yet full steam ahead in developing swimming pools and school swimming lessons, whether Surin Charity, Thai Small Schools, or not is clearly a short-sighted approach for an eventual ASEAN Olympics, that Kent's sports expert Tracey Crouch MP is leading in UK.

Ms Crouch as an FA referee might well blow the whistle to begin consideration not just of World Cup Display Events but also future Olympic sports and display sports. She'd have no stronger supporter than me in my MP and Mayor campaigns.

Except perhaps Richard Graham MP Gloucester's ASEAN Minister and a cheerleader for Indonesia in UK and building bridges and the need for a massive uplift in UK trade, in ASEAN long before the 2030 and 2034 World Cups.

It's too early though for Hyde Park schools and Project Chaika.

UK as a Sporting Superpower, the Cricket World Cup in venues throughout UK, Netball World Cup in Liverpool and USA NFL and Year of Sports in just one summer, suggest more could and should be done in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and even 2022 Senegal Youth Olympics preparation. The latter the first Olympics in Africa and alongside the Morocco HiSPeed rail, first in Africa recently visited by Liam Fox Trade Minister. No doubt for metro/rail connections to Cairo and Riyadh and Neom, even the revitalised Cape2Cairo rail via Wau and Juba.

The PCC police elections next year may even see Chief Constable Pughsley dusting off his police whistle for a reinvigorated Kent Police Blue Light Emergency Soccer Cup, from the bottomless well of the Kent Police Innovation Fund.

Sporting Superpower UK surely absurd in lacking Olympics pools in every county as are the lack of ice rinks given Bangkok can manage it in 30 degree Climate Change heat. As can Miami, almost 60 years ago in the bravura ice rink hotel opening scenes of East Kent's 007 Goldfinger movie.

### ASEAN Smart Cities and couch rambutans ###

While smaller ASEAN nations such as Brunei or Laos or Singapore (and Timor and Solomons?) must also be thinking of not just Display Events (keepy-uppy along Orchard Road?) but, given hopefully record crowds of supporters and tourists crashing their websites and road works, and niche events that can blossom as Kent orchids, such as E-Sports.

Although the Thai Sports Science team may be needed to get ASEAN couch potatos (couch rambutans?) away from computer games and into the fresh air of the various ASEAN Smart Cities.

Indeed a UK and ASEAN Alliance for 2030 and 2034 might well ponder the opportunity with the men in blazers of the FA, as the founding fathers of football, and FIFA for a 2038 India World Cup from New Delhi to Hyderabad. Perhaps even an India-China Winter Olympics in the Karakoram or Kashmir or Nepalese highlands at some point.

PM May surely basking in a relaxing summer of cricket and hiking and jam-making and wheatfield wandering, and possibly pondering a backbench role as a roving envoy for Great British Cricket in India and UK-Commonwealth-USA frenemy Pakistan of nukes and Afghan safe zones and heroin and Kashmir sabre-rattling etc.

Indeed perhaps a refreshed PM May can not just get former cricketer Imran Khan on-side on such issues, and UK's lead in womens sports in general, but develop given the UK lead on diasporas, an India Federation of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bhutan within the Commonwealth, for a linked-up approach to development rather than UK tearing itself apart on a Who Lost India debate as with China.

Perhaps given former PM's John Major and Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and David Cameron Brexit warnings, Mrs May may bury the hatchet with POTUS Trump - before Kent Pocahontas Liz Warren does, or scalps him with it -and benefit from USA experience in outlining a UK-PM Library system and forum, on similar lines to USA Presidential libraries and UN Elders for sage advice.

POTUS Trump so far looks as though his Presidential Library won't be needed until after 2024.

While Jeremy Corbyn's fellow redshirt Keir Starmer railing in his lawyerly way under Hilary Benn's wise Brexit chairmanship, against a UK fudge on Brexit. And both no doubt keen to move Labour beyond socialism in one tube zone noodling and navel-gazing.

Or Cuban revolution amongst Jezza's courgettes of the allotment (except for China taking first base in Cuban Rail overhaul), and as with Tom Watson urging Remain, to wake up and smell the Nicaraguan Fair Trade coffee - or Vietnamese coffee - and bat for UK Sports in cross-party support in the Indo-Pacific sports arena and beyond.

An ASEAN World Cup in 2034, and UK World Cup in 2030 plus an India World Cup in 2038 would indeed be a hat-trick worth cheering from the rooftops and terraces in delivering sports to the peoples.

UK's mandarins might well have an extra half-time Florida orange themselves as a welcome break from the Brexit and Darrochian mess damaging UK's reputation near and far.

Time for Change
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