By selecting Qatar, FIFA precluded a 2026 bid from China, since the same continent cannot host consecutive World Cups. That would seem to make 2030 the first year for which China has a realistic chance of winning a bid.
Wei told Titan Sports that a choice of date remained open and acknowledged differences of opinion over the matter within the country's sports bureaucracy and society at large.
Qatar, with 1.7 million people, only 300,000 of whom are citizens, is the smallest nation to host a World Cup. But with one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, it won with a bid that urged FIFA officials to make history as well as money. The success of the 2010 tournament, which was held in Africa for the first time, apparently further emboldened FIFA officials to continue to take its grandest spectacle to yet another part of the world, something that places soccer’s vision far ahead of the Olympics.
The hyper application would include other services, including a digital ticketing system combining matches and public transport, an electronic money service, GPS navigation to venues, match commentaries and a real-time automatic translation system supporting 50 languages.
The action on the field will be captured by 200 mini cameras and 70 microphones in the stadium, creating 360 degree coverage of the pitch.
"Viewers would be able to choose a viewpoint, which could be from the centre circle, the goalkeeper's position or the referee's perspective," said Nakajima, adding that the sound would even allow spectators to hear the players breathing.
"They can manipulate the perspective so that it would be very personal."
As the Middle East environmental blog Green Prophet points out, creating an environment that allows people to watch and play sports in one of the hottest places on the planet will require a lot of energy. Mark Fenwick, one of the architects involved with the project, admitted as much, saying: "Certainly the most important challenge for stadium design in the Middle East has to do with the need to cool the interior environment to an acceptable level, especially in the summer months."
A dramatic example is that the anticipated $4 billion benefit for cities in the US of hosting the 1994 World Cup were later found to have resulted in a net cost to the host cities' economies of $9.26 billion. With independent academics now accepting that no economic benefits can be expected from hosting the Olympics or a FIFA World Cup, attention has turned to what is called ''legacy planning''.
The London 2012 Olympics legacy is intended to be urban renewal. But prosaic legacies are not being marketed in Australia.
Russia and England are bidding to stage the 2018 World Cup along with joint bids from Spain/Portugal and Belgium/Netherlands while Japan, South Korea, Qatar, United States and Australia are candidates for 2022.
Australia, which withdrew its bid to host the 2018 edition in June, joins Japan, South Korea, Qatar and the U.S. as hopefuls for 2022.
One contractor said that “We believe to stimulate the procurement process for rail in Qatar it will be driven by the announcement of the 2022 World Cup. A lot depends on Fifa.” Another industry observer said that “If they (Qatar) get it then it will all be ready by 2020. If not, it will be delayed and they will maybe just do one line of the metro. The 2022 FIFA bid will play a prominent role in the speed of development of the rail network.”
England and other European bidders Russia, Spain-Portugal and Belgium-Netherlands are still vying for both events as a formality.
The United States is the only non-European country still contesting both editions, after Australia, Japan, Qatar and South Korea focused their resources on 2022.
The Americans have said they will withdraw from 2018 bidding only if asked to by FIFA or UEFA president Michel Platini.
Revealed at the ‘Leaders in Football’ conference in London this week, the stadium incorporates environmentally friendly cooling technologies to keep spectators and players cool in Doha’s extreme heat. The concave profile of the stadium’s outer enclosure incorporates a system of operable louvers, while the central section of the saddle-form roof can be extended or retracted to allow the pitch to be open to the sky or fully covered.
Encircled by a reflective pool of water, spectators enter the stadium via six bridges that cross the “moat.” To give the impression of floating above the concrete seating bowl, the roof is discreetly supported by a ring of arching columns.
11: The city has two fantastic stadiums already in place, underlining the fact that England already has the facilities to host the 2018 tournament – unlike Russia.
12: There is no need to worry about the transport links either. Manchester Airport is the busiest in the county outside London in terms of passenger numbers.
13: And on the ground, Old Trafford is well served by both train and tram, while the Metrolink will be extended to Eastlands long before 2018.
14: In addition, Manchester is at the heart of the country’s motorway network, so it’s easy to get around.
15: The city’s sporting and transport infrastructure is one of the main reasons FIFA president Sepp Blatter believes it would be, in his words, “easy” to host the World Cup in England.
The sports expert says that one can compare Russia’s situation with South Africa’s in the run-up to the world cup this year. Pretoria spent some three billion dollars to get ready, Ivanov says, but “Russia’s expenses, considering all [its] problems with corruption will be one and a half times greater.”
The idea of pursuing the world cup, the writer says, “according to rumors belongs to Vladimir Putin,” and that explains why “the tactics of the struggle of the Russian Football Union … repeat the pattern of the struggle for the Olympiad in Sochi: Everything is being build on the basis of the personal guarantees of the prime minister.”
Russia's bid proposes 14 new stadiums in 13 cities and a massive overhaul of the national infrastructure as part of its bid, making it the most ambitious and expensive competitor for the 2018 tournament.
Inspection team leader Harold Mayne-Nicholls said work would have to start immediately. "I would like to emphasise that, in the case the Fifa Executive Committee decides in December that the World Cup will go for the first time in football history to Russia, work would need to start immediately, to guarantee that everything will be in place right in time."
For now, though, insiders are tipping Russia for 2018. Fifa delights in tapping new markets through World Cups. Russia is a white spot on Europe’s footballing map. It has never hosted a major football tournament. Crucially, it can muster more lobbying might than its rivals. When Vladimir Putin phones asking for your support, you probably say yes. A Russian World Cup would cost a lot, but if Putin wants to spend the money, Russia will.
As for the 2022 World Cup, the most important words spoken in this race came from a country that isn’t even bidding. Wei Di, new head of China’s football federation, said this month: “I think China should apply for the World Cup [of 2026].”
China’s government will make the decision, not Wei Di. But Fifa would love China to bid. If the country signals it will, that would shape the race for 2022. If China gets 2026, no Asian country could stage 2022, because continents cannot host twice running. The only non-Asian bidder for 2022 is the US. So if China wants to bid, the US would surely get 2022.
They have demonstrated their ability to host large events with the success of the Asian Games held in Doha in 2006. With no shortage of money to devote to construction, the key focus of their promotional bid video is their five proposed new stadia. Each is designed by Albert Speer & Partner, a firm with a history of working at more intrepid scales in the Middle East than at home in Germany.
For a region not shy of symbolism, it might be no surprise that a familiar list of metaphors weighs the proposal down: the dhow fishing boat (Al Shamal Stadium); the seashell (Al Khor Stadium); the national flag (Al Gharafa Stadium); and the oasis (Al Wakrah Stadium), which might also make up for the sole missing metaphor, the pearl, in the form of a spherical glass dome.
The group of inspectors from football's governing body made the comments as they wrapped up a four-day visit to Japan, the first leg of their two-month tour of nine candidates vying to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
"We must say that the bid is a very balanced project, mixing football traditions, modern stadiums plus new technology with eco projects and integration with the world," said the team's leader, Harold Mayne-Nicholls.
Wei Di, the head of the Chinese Football Association (CFA), returned from South Africa last week and said he was keen to bring international soccer’s showpiece event to the world’s most populous country for the first time.
South Korea, Australia, Qatar and Japan have, however, already expressed their intention to bid for 2022 and Asian Football Confederation (AFC) president Bin Hammam said his priority was the success of one of those.
The truth, however, is that most such events don’t provide much economic stimulus, and often turn out to be money losers. This isn’t to say that cities or countries shouldn’t try to host these events — but, as the Soccernomics authors argue, they should at least realize that what they’re doing is paying for the right to host a big party. The same is generally true for public funding of new sports arenas, as the economist Dennis Coates made clear not long ago.
Two controversial European lobbyists hired to help bring the soccer World Cup to Australia stand to receive up to $11.37 million in fees and bonuses - one-quarter of the taxpayer-funded bid - according to secret Football Federation Australia files.
The files include a spreadsheet that suggests the federal government was not told specific details about how taxpayers' money was to be spent on the lobbyists and grants to overseas football bodies headed by powerful FIFA officials.
Radmann’s links to the global game and the World Cup go back decades, and reach to the highest levels of the sport.
In 2000, Radmann was selected by Franz Beckenbauer to play a key role on the Organising Committee for the 2006 World Cup to be held in Germany, touted as a “marketing and PR expert”. He had previously been the co-ordinator of Germany’s successful World Cup bid, one tainted by allegations of bribes paid to FIFA officials to secure the vote.