World Cup 2018 / 2022 hosts draw

[Lars77]

On Thursday 2nd, FIFA will go through the process of choosing the hosts for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. No-one knows who will win, because essentially what it boils down to is the mood of the delegates and the amount of brown envelopes passed under the hotel room doors the night before.

Here are the bidders:

2018: All the bidders are European.


Amsterdam (2 stadiums), Rotterdam (2 stadiums), Heerenveen, Enschede, Eindhoven, Antwerpen, Genk, Liège, Charleroi.

Final venue:
Probably a new 82.000 seater in Rotterdam.




London (3 Stadiums), Manchester (2 Stadiums), Newcastle, Liverpool, Birmingham, Sunderland, Nottingham, Bristol, Sheffield, Leeds, Milton Keynes, Plymouth.

Final venue: Wembley




Moscow (3 Stadiums), Podolsk, St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Yaroslavl, Samara, Volgograd, Sochi, Saransk, Krasnodar, Rostov-On-Don, Yekaterinburg.

Final venue: Grand Sports Arena of the Luzhniki Olympic Complex (Love that name)





Madrid (2 Stadiums), Barcelona (2 Stadiums), Lisboa (2 Stadiums), Valencia, Badajoz, Sevilla, Bilbao, Porto, Zaragoza, Santander, Malaga, A Coruna, San Sebastian, Valladolid, Vigo, Murcia, Alicante, Gijon.

Final Venue: Santiago Bernabèu



My comment for 2018: My favourites here are England. They hosted the last one in 1966, and they still go on about how great it was that time when they actually managed to win. They are extremely motivated (i.e. they are willing to influence delegates), have applied to host many tournaments but never got the nod. They have most of the stadiums and infrastructure already in place and will make a proper footballing atmosphere after the 2010 Vuvuzela cup and the 2014 in Brazil. The games will also be very compact in a relatively small country.

Outsiders: Russia, who are looking to host just about every international event imaginable, and are willing to use heaps of money to do it. Drawbacks include local corruption, long distances (but this was no problem for South Africa apparently).


2022: Asia, Oceania, and The USA.


Sydney (2 Stadiums), Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide, Blacktown, Canberra, Gold Coast, Townsville, Geelong.

Final venue: Probably Stadium Australia:




Osaka (2 Stadiums), Tokyo (2 Stadiums), Toyota, Yokohama, Saitama, Fukuroi, Ōita, Niigata, Kashima, Kobe, Sapporo.

Final Venue: Probably a new stadium in Osaka or Yokohama International Stadium




Doha (6 Stadiums, Lusail, Umm Salal, Al Khor, Ash-Shamal, Al Wakrah, Al Ryyan.

Final Venue: Probably Lusail National Stadium (Planned)



Seoul (2 Stadiums), Busan, Incheon (2 Stadiums), Daegu, Daejeon, Gwanju, Ulsan, Suwon, Goyang, Jeonju, Cheonan, Jeju.

Final Venue: World Cup Stadium




Los Angeles (2 Stadiums), New York, Dallas (2 Stadiums), DC, Miami, Houston, Kansas City, Denver, Tampa, Boston, Seattle (2 Stadiums), Phoenix, Atlanta, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Nashville, San Diego, Indianapolis.

Final Venue: Los Angeles Stadium (if built).



Aqually a pretty weak field. Where's China?
Quatar's bid is certainly interesting. 1,6 million people on a tiny island in the Persian Gulf. Incredibly high temparatures in June, and they used Albert Speer's son as the stadium arcitects. Just about every venue has to be built. Issues with alcohol, public shows of affection (which might happen during a World Cup), etc. Still, it's one of the most progressive gulf states.

South Korea hosted the World Cup with Japan in 2002, so they will have a hard time getting it again. South Korea promises to try and involve North Korea in hosting the games. Good luck with that.

To me it comes down to the US or Australia. The US hosted it in 1994, Australia has never hosted a world cup. Australia has the enthusiasm and the facilities. Rose Bowl and LA Memorial Coliseum are looking obsolete and unfit for soccer, if they really want the final venue in LA they better build the new stadium. A US world cup is probably capable of generating a lot of money for FIFA. There are issues with a lack of local enthusiasm (if you lived in New York or LA in 1994, you would not know they were hosting the world cup), heat (was a problem in 94), and Pacific times might be a problem for European and Asian TV viewers.

My favourite: Australia, nice temparatures there during the winter, would generate lots of local enthusiasm, and Oceania have never hosted a world cup.

Still, with the corruption in FIFA, who knows? Maybe Quatar has a shot?

[Condem]

1. Nice work, Lars.

My $ are on the US for 2022. I believe we set the attendance record in '94. An important piece of the resume'.

[MrCoffee]

2. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Holland/Belgium get 2018

England and Russia have seriously tarnished their chances here lately (the Panorama expose aired last night, I think, and Putin isn't even going to Zurich), combined with the Spanish/Portugese debt situation, the Holland/Belgium bid starts to look increasingly attractive.

I would love to see Holland/Belgium sneak in under the radar and steal the bid. That would be fantastic.

[HuckleB]

3. That would be a great World Cup, IMO.

If Holland/Belgium don't do it, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the Iberian bid.

[Lars77]

4. 2018 Hosts: Russia

As suspected. David Cameron brought Prince William and David Beckham there, rumours say they were knocked out in the first round of voting. Embarrasing for Cameron.

[Lars77]

5. 2022: Qatar

Amazing.

These two World Cups will stand for ever as evidence of the corruption of FIFA.

[RockaFowler]

6. This is a horrible choice

Never mind the temperature, the money they spent alone should have disqualified them. The US brought out the Big Dog!! We should have won!!

[Lars77]

7. It's all about the money and corruption

and i actually thought the US had a good shot, because CONCACAF, the federation that the US is a member of is known to be extremely corrupt. They also have one of the sleaziest FIFA men in the world there, Jack Warner of Trinidad.

Qatar is the most progressive gulf state (they even sort of recognize Israel), so one can hope that some good will come of this.

[Upton]

8. US just had it in '94

are we supposed to be somehow entitled to host a WC every 20 years or so? Heck, England hasn't hosted since '66.

[Lars77]

9. and they still didn't get it

England were knocked out in the first round of voting.

Putin was in Zurich a few days ago apparently, but went home "in protest over the accusation of corruption". He probably knew they'd get the cup already then.

[Upton]

11. I would have liked to see England

same goes with Australia. However, this complaining about the USA not getting it is coming from Americans with a sense of entitlement.

[jakefrep]

12. It's not about American entitlement

It would have been perfectly OK with me if the bid had gone to Australia, or Japan, or Korea. Qatar was the least qualified of the bidding nations and basically bribed their way into getting the tournament. The whole thing stinks of greed and corruption.

[Upton]

14. You act surprised by this

I'm not exactly sure why, as many considered Qatar one of the pre-vote favorites. It came down to the 4th round, where it was Qatar against the US. Would you have been complaining about greed and corruption had the US won that final vote? Maybe it's not about American entitlement for you, but I believe it definitely is for others.

One of the missions of the WC is to expand into areas of the world where it has not previously been hosted, or hasn't been in a long time. It has succeeded with the selections of Russia and Qatar. I would have preferred Australia for 2022, but both the the US and Japan/Korea Cups were just too recent.

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. There's a reason Qatar hasn't hosted it before. It's that Qatar is a shit place to host it.

Qatar is not a footballing nation; and it's tiny, hot, a touristic black hole:

"The thumb-shaped Qatar peninsula," warns the Lonely Planet guide (1st edition, published 2000) "is not exactly one of the world's major tourist destinations."

The chapter on the Qatari capital is even less enticing. "Around the Gulf, Doha has earned the unenviable reputation of being the dullest place on earth."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/9224946.stm

and it is not the place for a street celebration:

You should dress modestly when in public, including whilst driving. Women should cover their shoulders and avoid wearing short skirts. You should behave courteously at all times. Any intimacy in public between men and women (including between teenagers) can lead to arrest. Homosexual behaviour is illegal in Qatar.

http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel-and-living-abroad/travel-advice-by-country/middle-east-north-africa/qatar

'Illegal' means the death penalty, if you're Muslim: http://lib.ohchr.org/HRBodies/UPR/Documents/Session7/QA/JS1_UPR_QAT_S07_2010_JointSubmission1.pdf

[MrCoffee]

16. One of Sepp Blatter's missions is to be remembered by history as someone other than a douche

This vote was absolutely about Blatter's dream of immortality.

[HuckleB]

17. Australia was deserving, but England was bottom of the pile.

[ProfessorGAC]

19. You're Kidding, Right?

No, really. You're kidding, right? Otherwise, your even sillier and more obtuse than i thought. Any possible way to take the contrarian view, huh? Really pathetic.
GAC

[RockaFowler]

10. Why not Australia??

Why Qatar?? It's a horrible choice anyway you look at it

[Lars77]

13. 1 out of every 3 FIFA delegates have been charged with corruption.. nt

[fedsron2us]

18. England, Australia, the USA, Spain/Portugal and Belgium/Holland

must all feel like the ultimate suckers. They have basically been conned into spending millions on constructing technical and business bids based on the criteria laid out by FIFA whose committee then ignored the reports of their own evaluators and awarded the competition on completely different grounds. If the World Cup was not going to be awarded to a country that had held it before then FIFA should have stated that case at the outset rather than wasting people time and money. The fact that it was a done deal before a vote had been cast can be discerned from the fact that Al Jazeera apparently announced the result before Blatter even came to the podium.

The truth is that the World Cup is a sporting franchise in serious decline. There have been too many poor competitions recently with South Africa 2010 producing some of the most forgettable games in the tournaments history. The constant rumours of corruption and vote selling only add to the stink of rot. There is market opening here for some of the sports media companies to eat FIFAs lunch. They only have to woo away some of the bigger countries with a guarantee of participation and some share in the money generated from selling broadcasting rights and new international competition could be running before 2018. Maybe Blatter and his cronies have already seen the writing on the wall which is why they went for a double World Cup bid this time to maximise their chances of filling their boots with cash before the whole operation imploded.