Analysis of Bids for 2018 World Cup — Part I

Over the past few weeks, numer­ous nations have bid for the rights to host the 2018 & 2002 FIFA World Cup. Since the 2018 World Cup is closer most of the news about host nation bids con­cerns the 2018 tour­na­ment. With 2010 in South Africa and 2014 in Brazil,  nations from UEFA, CONCACAF, Asia can bid for the 2018 tour­na­ment so the deci­sion on the host nation for 2022 tour­na­ment will be impacted by the win­ning bid­der for the 2018 tournament.

Offi­cially, there have been 6 con­firmed bids with a bid from CONCACAF nations com­ing soon. Those nations inter­ested in host­ing the ’18 & ’22 tour­na­ments have until Feb­ru­ary 2nd to sub­mit an offi­cial bid. In Part I, we will look at 4 of the offi­cial bids and give an out­look on their chances of win­ning the right to host The Great Tournament.

AUSTRALIA

The Land Down Under has suc­cess­fully hosted 2 Olympic Games, 1956 Mel­bourne & 2000 Syd­ney as well as 2 FIFA U-20s World Cups in 1993 & 1981 and 2003 Rugby World Cup. Aussies are not strangers to host­ing big events and with the Aus­tralian A-League in full effect, the sta­di­ums should be up to FIFA stan­dards with infra­struc­ture being a non issue.

Out­look: FIFA Pres­i­dent, Sepp Blat­ter recently sug­gested that Aus­tralia con­cen­trate on 2022 because the 2010 & 2014 World Cups would be in the South­ern Hemi­sphere so Aus­tralia might be the front run­ner in 2022.

BELGIUM & NETHERLANDS
 &
The bid of Bel­gium & Nether­lands is one of the two joint bids sub­mit­ted to FIFA. The two main enti­ties of the Benelux coun­tries may be too small to host the World Cup. Right now, between Bel­gium & The Nether­lands there aren’t 12 sta­di­ums with a min­i­mum capac­ity of 40,000 and 1 sta­dium of a capac­ity of 80,000 as per FIFA stan­dards for host­ing a World Cup, although Bel­gian offi­cials have plans to upgrade sta­di­ums to meet the requirements.

Out­look: A mir­a­cle if they get ’18 or ’22. Espe­cially with a Euro­pean joint bid like Spain & Por­tu­gal out there.

ENGLAND

The hosts & win­ners of the 1966 World Cup have the pas­sion to pull off a great World Cup.  Sta­di­ums won’t be a prob­lem espe­cially since the Stan­ley Park project for Liv­er­pool will prob­a­bly be com­plete by then.  If there is a prob­lem in secur­ing England’s bid it may inter­nal pol­i­tics between the hier­ar­chy of the FA & the hier­ar­chy of the Pre­mier League. They will have to grill what­ever beef they have and come together to win over the 24 mem­ber FIFA Exec­u­tive Committee.

Out­look: Eas­ily a seri­ous can­di­date, Spain/Portugal bid is their biggest competition.

PORTUGAL & SPAIN
 &
The Iber­ian penin­sula threw their mar­bles in the cir­cle with a joint bid for the 2018 World Cup.  The Japan/Korea World Cup of 2002 proved that dual hosts can work.  Spain & Por­tu­gal have 8 of UEFA’s 5-star sta­di­ums (3 in Port­gual, 5 in Spain). Spain hosted the 1982 World Cup and Por­tu­gal hosted the Euro 2004.  Talk is that Latin Amer­i­can mem­bers of FIFA’s Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee would vote for Spain/Portugal because of the cul­tural & lan­guage similarities.

Out­look: Shocked if they don’t get 2018 Tour­na­ment. Every­thing is set up well for a smooth tournament.

Part II is com­ing to ana­lyze the last two known offi­cial bids and a cou­ple of expected bids from CONCACAF that will make FIFA’s deci­sion much tougher. 

Tagged as: 2018 World Cup, Australia, Belgium, England, FIFA, Holland, Portugal, Spain, World Cup