Jack Warner may be a noxious clown but he has certainly had England’s 2018 World Cup bidders jumping through hoops.

The Fifa vice-president from Trinidad, whose support supposedly is crucial to England’s quest to stage the tournament for the first time since 1966, has never been much if an Anglophile and his jibe that the bid is "lightweight" is par for the particular course he is adopting. But at least it seems to have provoked an overdue revamping of a bid hitherto heading perilously in the same direction as Paris’s abortive attempt to get the 2012 Olympic Games.
 

It may not simply be coincidence that the former Birmingham City managing director Karren Brady, aka the first lady of football and now the new sidekick of Sir Alan Sugar on The Apprentice, has been told "You’re hired!" She comes in to add glam and gumption, alongside Paul Elliott, a welcome black presence and worthy anti-racist campaigner who is as erudite off field as he was a player on it for Chelsea and Celtic.
 

Out goes Baroness Amos, off to be Our Woman in Canberra, the  Labour peer whose original inclusion baffled many in football as her knowledge of the game could be written on the back of her occasional Spurs match day ticket.   
 

All excellent moves, as was the recent belated invitation to Seb Coe, who knows more than anyone in the land about bid-winning. But do they go far enough? Much as we all want England to play host in 2018 the vibes are not altogether heartening.
 

Led by another Labour peer, Lord Triesman, who has elected himself to double with his role as FA chairman, the bid team still appears politically top-heavy (though it might well have been politic, in every sense,  to incorporate the Shadow Sports Minister Hugh Robertson as he looks likely to be doing the job for real when the bid is decided). The uncomfortable echoes of Paris four years ago remain. If the outcome was to be decided on technical merit alone then surely England would be home and dry.

 

We have the stadia, the pedigree and then organisational nous. But history shows these bids are won by style as much as substance and we continue to await the evidence that this England team (like its playing counterparts) can actually win the World Cup. Like, Paris, its lacks, pizzazz and personality up front.
 

Also, favourite is not the most comfortable position. Ask not only Paris, but Chicago - and remember England considered themselves as such when the 2006 World Cup was up for grabs. Then arrogance and complacency was blamed for a disastrous defeat – not to mention a broken promise that they would not bid against Germany. Luckily there seems little likelihood of those characteristics repeating themselves this time but other factors may weigh against England. High among them is a continuing lack of popularity among  elements of FIFA, not just Warner’s cronies. It is vital that these are won over.
 

The question is whether Lord Triesman is the man to do woo the waverers. While he may consider he has the clout, does he really have the charisma to do as Lord Coe did in Singapore?
 

London’s fortunes changed when Coe replaced  Barbara Cassani, a square peg in the Olympic rings, as bid chairman. Maybe a change of striker would work similarly for England.
 

So who could do a Seb for England? Alas, the good lord himself is otherwise occupied with 2012, though he is now giving useful input to the bid together with his erstwhile vice-chairman Sir Keith Mills. While candidates don’t exactly leap, out at you, surely it would be beneficial to those star-gazing FIFA delegates to see a former player of distinction up front? While David Beckham will be as invaluable mid-field as he was for London 2012, you can’t imagine him giving the keynote address. But you need not delve back into the realms of 1966 and all that to unearth someone capable of putting a Coe-like message across.

 

My choice would be Gary Lineker (pictured), who has the lucidity, the tele-presence, the profile and a fluency in Spanish that would impress the FIFA's influential Latin bloc. Alongside him I’d have Sir Trevor Brooking who has the necessary gravitas.
 

It is a pity that Heather Rabbatts, the former Millwall chair, cannot be persuaded to make herself available, too. Both gifted and black, she is a feisty, opinionated lady who herself would make an outstanding bid leader if football was not such a male dominated bastion. One problem though is that she is married to Mike Lee. the former UEFA and London 2012 spinmeister who masterminded Rio’s 2016 Olympics-winning campaign but whose proven PR skills have been overlooked by England. Instead he is helping to promote rivals Qatar – who are not bidding for 2018 but watch them emerge as serious contenders for 2022.
 

However it seems unlikely that the seriously single-minded Triesman  will drop himself and bring on a sub at this stage. So we must hope he is equipped to score against some tough opposition, the most formidable of which I believe will be Russia now they have declared themselves in. Having a first World Cup in Eastern Europe could be as appealing to FIFA as giving an Olympics debut to South America was the IOC.
 

It is easy to flatter Blatter,and Russia's Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko is known to have the ear of the FIFA boss, as indeed, does someone far more powerful; former President Vladimir Putin,, now the Prime Minister, whose friendly persuasion was instrumental in snatching the 2014 Winter Games for the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Matching Triesman against this Russian giant will be as intriguing and potentially painful an Anglo-Russian punch-up as little David Haye taking on the 24-stone seven-foot Goliath Nikolay Valuev.
 

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered 11 summer Olympics and several football World Cups.