Votes for sale?

What about this Panorama programme then?  The team bidding for England to host the 2018 World Cup say it will damage their case.  The BBC say the programme was in the public interest.  A couple of points spring to mind.  Firstly, the content may well have been in the public interest, but the timing was a little strange - it seems pretty clear that this programme could have been put out weeks if not months ago, so why wait until the bid is just days away?  The second point is that the whole business reflects rather badly on the bid team who seem to be saying in coded language that they would rather that known corruption remained a secret than that revealing it jeopardised our bid.  On a purely personal level I hope we don't get it.  I may not be around in 2018, but Villa Park, which I assume is likely to be one of the venues, is uncomfortably close to where I live.