World Cup 2022: Will there be a new host? (Feature)

By Peter Auf der Heyde Nov 25, 2010, 4:05 GMT

Berlin - Once it became apparent that the 2018 World Cup finals will be held in Europe, the number of countries in with a realistic chance for 2022 dwindled.

After football's controlling body FIFA replaced the rotation policy with one that stated that no country from the confederation that hosted the World Cup is eligible to bid for the next two tournaments, South American and European countries fell by the

wayside for 2022.

Brazil will host the 2014 tournament and an European country will have the honour four years later, leaving only countries from the Asian, African, North and Central American and Caribbean, as well as Oceania confederations in the running.

With Oceania (due to lack of infrastructure) and Africa (as they hosted the 2010 finals) out of the running, only a handful of countries are really in with a chance.

Thus, when the FIFA executive meet at the beginning of December to decide where the 2022 World Cup finals will be played, they will decide between Qatar, Australia, Japan, South Korea and the US.

And just as the race to host the 2018 finals has been dogged by controversy, so too has the 2022 one.

The sting operation by an English newspaper that saw two FIFA executive members being banned for one and three years, used the US bid (unbeknown to the US bid committee) to attempt to secure the vote of the two members in return for favours.

And it was also FIFA's worst-kept secret that one of the bid committees investigated by the organization's ethics committee for collusion with another bid committee was Qatar.

Although the findings of the committee stated that they did not find enough evidence to constitute a violation of the bidding process, it could well be that Qatar's hopes of becoming the first Middle Eastern country to host the tournament were irreparably harmed.

It seems similarly unlikely that either Japan or South Korea, who co-hosted the finals in 2002, will be given another chance so soon afterwards, which would leave the US and Australia.

The US hosted a hugely successful World Cup in 1994 but domestically football remains somewhat behind baseball, American football and basketball when it comes to support for the professional game. Hosting the finals in the Land of the Stars and Stripes will, however, be a safe option for FIFA and they could opt for such that choice.

If not, Australia seems the next most likely place as they are certainly in line to host the tournament. However, it could well be that 2022 is four years too early for them.

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