And the winner is...

Following the announcement of Russia and Qatar as the hosts of the greatest show in earth in 2018 and 2022 respectively the inbox has been filling up this week with details of lots of conferences, exhibitions, networking events promising to be able to put us in front of the people writing the cheques for the Billions of dollars of investment required to ensure a successful World Cup.

While there can be no doubt that there will be significant opportunities in both Russia and Qatar due to the nature of the work to be completed I can't help feeling that the organisers of these events are doing their best to ride on the wave on enthusiasm following last week's announcement.

A large helping of caution will be exercised with a side portion of cynicism as details of these events promising a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow continue to flow in over the coming months. As is usually the case with the vast majority of these exhibitions and similar events, the main winners are the organisers who secure massive investment from participants for what is more often than not a dissapointing return.