The World Cup 2018/22 bid process is quickly degenerating into a farce as England has filed a complaint against 2018 opponent Russia for remarks by bid leader Alexei Sorokin critical of London's high crime rate and levels of teenage drinking, as well as the "ethnic hatred" Manchester United incited by burning an American flag at Old Trafford.

Sorokin called the complaint "strange" since he was simply pointing out that British media appeared to focus on negative aspects of the Russian soccer while Russian journalists could have written about the issues he mentioned but had avoided acting, as he put it, like "the aunt in the kitchen criticizing our neighbors."

Speaking at a conference in Zurich, "The idea was that the [Russian] media did not focus on the negative manifestations of any other societies, ours or anyone else's. The examples may have been bad examples, as it turned out, but they were just examples."