Fingers crossed for FIFA bid

Tomorrow morning the FIFA World Cup 2018 and 2022 host nations will be announced.

For 2022, the contenders are Australia, Japan, Qatar, South Korea and the USA.

”If Australia hosts the World Cup, Australia changes forever as a nation and for the better,” former Socceroo and FOX Sports commentator Andy Harper tells The Age. ”For a long time now we’ve had to engage with the world on their terms; you can’t do it well unless you’re engaged with the most common currency and that is football.”

An Australian World Cup would be played in 12 stadiums in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Geelong, Sydney, Newcastle, Canberra, Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Townsville. Three new stadiums would be built in Western Sydney, Townsville and Canberra and nine refurbished at a total cost of $2.3 billion.

Australia’s strategy has been to build support capable of surviving the opening stages of a contest in which the lowest vote-getter is eliminated after each round. While Australia will not have as many first-round votes as Qatar, it hopes to pick up the second preferences of voters as first Japan and then hopefully South Korea are eliminated. Twelve votes are needed to win.

Coverage of the announcement takes place at 2am AEDT Friday and can be seen on the following channels:

Friday December 3rd:
1:00am FOX Sports
1:30am ABC New 24
1:45am ONE HD
1:45am BBC World News
1:55am SBS ONE
2:00am SKY News

Source: The Age