England hopes knocked by Blatter
The Fifa president Sepp Blatter, whilst in London to meet Chancellor Gordon Brown, said: “The executive must take a decision whether the rotation should include all federations. If the Americas are considered as one, then rotation would go to Asia.”
The USA intends to bid to stage the finals for a second time (previously hosted in 1994) and China & Australia are also interested.
There is a December executive committee meeting of FIFA which could remove rotation and allow all bidders or they could decide to maintain the rotation which would mean the tournament going to North America or Asia (ruling out England in Europe).
“It may be that the majority of the Fifa executive committee where you have eight European representatives out of 24, can find the 13 votes needed.” said Blatter in London (talking about Englan’s chances of the 2018 finals), but his personal choice is for rotation to continue to North America. Which could mean the USA, Mexico or Canada hosting the tournament in 2018.
Bid Information
March 29, 2007 @ 10:00 am
Ken Osborne said:
I don’t understand this FIFA president, he knows nothing about football. Since when was football the most popular sport in North America?
April 27, 2007 @ 11:30 pm
Tom said:
Exactly. Why should we try and convince the Yanks to watch football by wasting our world cups on them. They had 1994 and there is only an underground interest in football as evidenced in their domestic attendences. We should stop pandering to such continents as America or Australasia and realize that Europe is the home of football and play at least one in 3 finals in Europe. England would host a spectacular event and would have all the possible backing from local fans and travelling worldwide support as England is still a major tourist attraction.
May 21, 2007 @ 4:58 am
Ben said:
I agree. If there is a rotation system then Europe, South America and Africa should be rotated to more often than the likes of North America, Australasia and Asia.
This would reflect the level of interest in the games. In Europe, South America and Africa football is a passion and in other places it is an interest.
2018 for England!!!!!