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The announcement of who will host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups is getting very close. In just under two months time Australia will find out if all the effort of putting this massive bid together has payed off.
Initially we were bidding for either the 2018 or 2022 World Cup, but pulled out of the 2018 race after lengthy meetings between the FFA and FIFA.
Most people will common sense knew that Australia were never going to get the 2018 World Cup anyways. There was no chance FIFA would let a third consecutive World Cup be played outside of Europe after South Africa this year and Brazil in 2014.
Australia were completely correct in now focusing solely on the 2022 World Cup, which they should have just done in the first place.
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard met FIFA President Sepp Blatter in Zurich to discuss Australia hosting the world’s biggest sporting event in 2022 on her way to a summit in Brussels.
“Obviously, we urged him (Sepp Blatter) to see the merits of our cup bid … we are a great sporting nation, one of the biggest in the world and Australia has a great track record running such events including the Olympics and Commonwealth Games … this was a great opportunity to talk through the bid before December” Gillard said.
The FIFA President also likened Australia’s bid to host the World Cup to a Formula One driver at the starting line “fully fuelled” and ready to go, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said. Interesting.
Just yesterday, Australia also pledged $60 million to sports projects in the Caribbean to win Jamaican backing for our bid to host the 2022 World Cup.
This may be good news for our bid, but some A-League club owners have complained at the amount of effort being spent on the World Cup bid rather than on the struggling national competition.
It’s not all good news though as Television supremo David Hill joined the United States bid committee for the 2018 or 2022 FIFA World Cup, pitting him against his country, Australia, for the right to host the 2022 tournament. Things just got a whole lot harder for Australia, as we will now have to beat one of the sharpest minds in sports media to bring the world’s biggest sports event down under.
Things are definitely heating up now and the decision is getting closer, and closer. For me, it can’t come soon enough.
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