posted Sep 26, 2007

"I know that our case is different as we are actually one nation, with the same currency and infrastructure."

in which case the majority of the EU could qualify as one country to host a world cup then!

point is we cant go on about england scotland wales and northern ireland being separate footballing nations and getting frustrated that Blatter wants a united british football team if we then go on about a joint british world cup bid. it doesn't matter if 'technically the UK is one country', in footballing terms we are separate nations, as separate as China and the USA. separate teams and separate FA's means separate countries. remember when there were restrictions on foreign players in UEFA club competitions in the early 90's? well that affected england worst because it meant welsh scots and northern irish were classed as foreign. players like giggs were considered foreign despite having the same nationality as most the rest of the man utd team. we can't have it both ways. either were are separate football nations, in which case no talk of a british world cup; or we want a british FA and therefore it would be a british world cup anyway.

a joint England/Scotland bid would mean half the stadia coming from each country - so 6 from scotland and 6 from england lets say.

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posted Sep 26, 2007

and as i have mentioned before - world cups have a rule about only one city being allowed to have more than one stadia being used. someone mentioned paris using parc de prince and stade de france - but that was their one city using 2 stadia, no other cities used multiple stadia.

this is a problem for england because london has a crazy number of large stadia. no other city in the world i think has as many 30,000+ stadia - or professional football teams for that matter - than London. also causes a problem when we have manchester, liverpool and potentially birmingham having 2 large stadia each. would most likely mean man city, everton and birmingham city missing out on world cup games, despite having world class stadia in 2018.

tho even with that problem, we still have wembley, old trafford, emirates, (new) anfield, villa park, stadium of light, st james park, elland road, hillsborough, (forest) city ground, riverside, that are good enough for world cup games. and we have plenty of 30,000 seater stadia that could possibly be 40-50,000 seater by then - walkers stadium, MK, st mary's, carrow road, portman road, potential bristol stadium, pompey? we will have no problem hosting.

final question regarding the British issue tho. if cardiff city built a super stadium (or swansea, wrexham or merthyr tydfil for that matter) - would it be classed as an english stadium? it surely would be because despite the stadium being in wales, it will belong to a team that is under the English FA.

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posted Sep 26, 2007

"If FIFA or UEFA do want to have joint bids in future I think that the the 2 Counries should have a play-off with only the winner getting auto qualification and the other team then trying to qualify the same as the rest of the Countries."

no chance of this succeeding! just imagine a team hosting the world cup and NOT being there themselves. nice suggestion to solve having 2 automatic qualifyers, but would not be agreed by anyone.

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posted Sep 26, 2007

No, Europe does not deserve to host the WC in 2018. The US should (bigger stadiums) because it's our turn.
WC locations:

'98 - Europe
'02 - Asia
'06 - Europe
'10 - Africa
'14 - S America

What continent is missing? (Australia is not a continent and Antarctica doesn't have a football team)

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posted Sep 27, 2007

kasbah......

' no other city has as many professional teams as London'



I believe Buenos Aires has that distinction. Also know that the last time I was in Uruguay all but two of their sixteen First division clubs were from Montevideo.

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posted Sep 28, 2007

absolutely yes! probably the only chance you'll have of winning it again! the first one looks more and more like a fluke!

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posted Sep 30, 2007

comment by ronpaulfan
No, Europe does not deserve to host the WC in 2018. The US should (bigger stadiums) because it's our turn.
What continent is missing? (Australia is not a continent and Antarctica doesn't have a football team)
-

You hosted it in 94 you 'tard. If it goes to N. America it should go to Mexico.

England over the USA anyday for me, because it's in Europe and the football culture in England kills anything the yanks have (who cares more about their own 'football' aka handball than 'soccer'), plus televising times are better. And everything is not so spaced out. Stadiums and money does not make for the best world cup, you know. Football is alot more than that.

And by the way, Australia HAS its own continent, its called Oceania. Look it up. The federation in question is OFC. How arrogant for you to overlook them. But you're American. You do that to everyone don't you?

USA 2018 my ass. Nobody wants it there.

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posted Oct 1, 2007

ronpaulfan - how exactly is Australia not a continent?

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posted Oct 2, 2007

Australia is not a continent.

Nor is Oceania.

Australasia is.

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posted Oct 12, 2007

Oceana is the continental federation, the real name for the continent is actually Australasia which includes New Zealand, Fiji etc as well as Australia.

As much as I think Australia would make fantastic hosts- (look at the 2000 Olympics or the 2003 Rugby World Cup or the 2006 Commonwealth Games) for purely selfish reasons I would love to seee football return to England.

As for Scotland and Wales having games, as much as I would like to see that, it would mean 3 teams automatically qualifying and I cannot see FIFA agreeing to that. In regards for FA paying Wales back, they already did when the Welsh rugby team played at Wembley (and beat England in 1999 there!!! England losing away to Wales in England hmm!!!) also I am sure money was exchanged for the use of the Millenium Stadium.

Also to see Twickenham hosting matches would be fantastic. The RFU would never allow it, I suppose a trade of Twickenham being used for the football world cup in exchange for premier league football stadiums for the 2015 rugby world cup England are rumoured to get!

My list for stadiums would be

Wembley
Twickenham/Arsenal's stadium
Old Trafford
Stanley Park
St James PArk
Stadium of Light
Villa Park
Forest's expanded City Ground
St Mary's Stadium
Expanded Norwich/pswich Stadium
Elland Road- needs upgrading
Hillsborough- upgrading required.

Personally I believe 10 stadiums is enough but just in case I added 12.

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