Key Roles for Gill and Kenyon in World Cup Bid

England's 2018 World Cup bid will finally begin to take shape at a Football Association board meeting today. The board is expected to approve the structure of the bid company that will attempt to deliver the tournament to these shores for the first time in more than 50 years.

There are expected to be key roles for Lord Triesman, the FA's chairman, as chair of the bid company as well as for the chief executives of Manchester United and Chelsea, David Gill and Peter Kenyon respectively. Gill and Kenyon are highly respected in European football circles and would bring considerable weight to negotiations with Uefa and Fifa. Indeed Kenyon, as a member of the 13-man strategic steering group of Uefa, has a direct line to some of the most influential decision-makers in the European game.

A promotion to become the bid company's chief executive is expected for a senior member of the FA's management structure, with Simon Johnson, the director of corporate affairs, and Jonathan Hill, the commercial director, both tipped for the role.

Provided approvals are secured, there will be board positions for the sports minister, Gerry Sutcliffe, and the government's World Cup bid ambassador, Richard Caborn. The FA will retain the services of its World Cup consultants, ECN, whose chairman, Peter Hargitay, and director, Markus Siegler, were senior figures at Fifa for more than 10 years.

More solid ground

The FA board's deliberations extend beyond 2018 as it considers the long-term implications of Wembley's financing. The outstanding debt is £346m but £80m of the capital sum has been paid off with the Club Wembley receipts and the banks are feeling slightly more sanguine about the stadium's viability. That means a refinancing at 7%-a-year interest is close to being agreed. That will contribute significantly to reducing the cost base of the stadium - the overruns for which have amounted to up to £30m a year - but the FA is likely to keep a tighter rein on the stadium company. Several directors have departed from the Wembley National Stadium Limited board and it is thought they may now be replaced with senior figures from within the FA. One thing is certain - the hopes of reviving the national football center at Burton-on-Trent, also on today's agenda, depend on the stability of the heavily indebted national stadium.

Pig in the middle

At the club whose fans once aimed a pig's head at their former player Luis Figo came a protest by the British pork industry. An award-winning pig farmer, Paul Hevey, was the Manchester United supporter who last night unveiled a banner at Barcelona's Camp Nou drawing attention to the industry's £3.5m-a-week losses.

Scott's games switch

The appointment of UK Sport's head of Drug-Free Sport, John Scott, to the position of chief executive of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games upsets expectations that he would head up the new National Anti-Doping Organization. Scott will remain in his post at UK Sport until after he has delivered the business case for Nado he is currently drawing up for government, which is due for delivery before the end of next month. His deputy, Andy Parkinson, will now be the most senior internal candidate.

All the thanks you get

It seems Cambridge City's reward for exposing bribery and fraud in the sale of their ground may be enforced demotion from the Blue Square South, despite the fact that the club will finish several places above relegation. A high-court judgment delivered in September last year found that City's former chief executive had been bribed and that an agent of the club's landlords had committed "fraudulent misrepresentations" against the club. City have now failed their ground grading and the Football Conference is showing no signs of sympathy. A Conference board meeting today will decide their fate. It seems the Conference must consider that driving corruption out of football is secondary to ground-capacity concerns for a club of only 400 regulars. It is insisting that the capacity must be raised from 2,000 to 3,000 and two turnstiles added to make a grand total of six.

matt.scott@guardian.co.uk