Bin Hammam: World Cup Improves Prospects of Ambitious 2018/2022 Bids

(WFI) Mohamed Bin Hammam, the hugely influential AFC President and FIFA Ex-co member, believes World Cup 2010 has opened up the way for the staging of future finals in countries with ambitious investment and legacy plans.

"We didn't expect to see a World Cup so successfully conducted, that the teams are going to be comfortable, fans are going to be enjoying it,” Bin Hammam was quoted by the Associated Press.

"But at the end of the day what we saw was that everything was perfectly done - more than what we expected.''

Bin Hammam said that South Africa served as vindication for Sepp Blatter, who “put his neck out” for the tournament to be staged there, and might encourage FIFA to pick another candidate whose bid demanded such ambitious infrastructural investment.

"We know exactly as FIFA members what sort of infrastructure is required to be in place… on the eve of the World Cup. We don't insist that everything has to be completed before we vote,'' the Qatari said.

He added that he believed FIFA's executive members were "wise enough [and] clever enough'' to make the right choice.

"Their experience is much bigger and better than anybody else from outside to judge. If they decide something, the world has to have faith in them.''

This summer’s tournament has been viewed by those countries vying to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups as crucial to the destiny of those competitions.

If South Africa was a failure, bid nations expected the FIFA executive to be more favourable to a “safe” destination, such as England or the USA, when voting on Dec. 2.

But a successful World Cup might pave the way for further grand legacy projects.

In South Africa, six new stadiums were built, and new airports, hotels, as well as hundreds of miles of new roads accompanied major infrastructural investment.

Pre-World Cup such an outcome was considered beneficial to countries like Russia, which plans to build 13 new stadiums, and Bin Hammam’s home nation Qatar.

Also bidding for 2018 or 2022 are Australia, Holland-Belgium, Japan, South Korea and Spain-Portugal.

Australian Olympic chief gets behind bid
Australian Olympic chief John Coates tells INSIDER the country's World Cup bid leaders can put their troubles behind them and move forward with optimism.

Football Federation Australia chairman Frank Lowy and CEO Ben Buckley have come under fire for splashing out on gifts to FIFA Ex-co members' wives and spending millions on consultants. In the past two weeks, they have also had to fight allegations made in the country's Fairfax group of newspapers claiming the bid team used dual budgets to hide its spending.

But the Australian government cleared the bid of any malpractice following an investigation into its internal financial reporting.

Coates, president of the Australian Olympic Committee, said he is "fully behind them".

"They have been working closely with the government. The government has confirmed they have been operating totally within the rules," Coates told INSIDER in Johannesburg where he was a guest at a South African Olympic committee luncheon on Monday.

"My position is that it is time for Australia to get behind them and fully support the bid," added Coates, an IOC member from Australia.

Coates was one of the architects behind Sydney's successful bid for the 2000 Olympic Games and said bid officials should not let criticism from the Australian press undermine their campaign to secure the 2022 World Cup.

"We had a similar experience coming into Sydney, he said. "We will move forward now. We are giving this [the 2022 bid] our best shot," he said.

New research by Australian financial analysts IBISworld says that a World Cup in Australia would provide a $35.56 billion boost to the country’s economy.

According to IBISWorld, three-quarters of the money would be spent on new infrastructure with licensed venues, retailers, transport operators and hotels also standing to benefit.

"IBISWorld forecasts that the 2022 World Cup in Australia would, in real terms, generate four times more spending than the 2000 Olympics," said IBISworld’s general manager, Robert Bryant.

The research was carried out independently from Australia’s World Cup bid team, but sources say that it reaffirms their view that hosting the finals would be of “massive benefit” to the country.

Mawhinney criticises “dysfunctional” FA
Brian Mawhinney, vice chairman of England 2018, has criticised the Football Association in the wake of the national team's dismal performance at the World Cup and resignations from the FA.

Interviewed by the BBC, Mawhinney, who recently retired as Football League chairman, was typically candid. He said that the FA needed “outside” help to rectify its problems.

''I do think it's dysfunctional,” he said.

“It's been dysfunctional for some time. What has impressed me in recent days has not been the number of people who have said to me that the FA has been dysfunctional, it's the number of people who've said to me that not only is it dysfunctional but it's incapable of fixing itself.

"It's going to need help from outside sources to do that.''

The perennial squabbling at the top table of English football has undermined the FA for years and briefly threatened to consume England’s World Cup bid last year when Premier League chairman Dave Richards resigned from the bid board.

This year has so far seen the exits of chief executive Ian Watmore and chairman – and World Cup bid leader – David Triesman.

Madail: Spain’s triumph boosts Iberian bid
Iberian World Cup bid co-chairman, Gilberto Madail, says that Spain’s extra-time win in Sunday’s World Cup Final “boosts” Spain and Portugal’s “common goal” to host the tournament in 2018 or 2022.

Madail, who also serves as Portuguese Federation (FPF) president, posted a note on the FPF website congratulating his Spanish counterparts after their victory over Holland.

“Naturally, the PFF expects the Spanish title will serve to strengthen what is the goal shared by the two Iberian Federations, namely the application to host the World Cup in 2018/2022,” he said in a statement.

Spain’s win comes as the Portuguese FA find themselves embroiled in an extraordinary row with Portugal coach Carlos Queiroz.

When defending Portugal’s second round exit to Spain, Sol newspaper reported Queiroz describing the federation as “amateur".

"Given the structure of amateur FPF, things went very well for Portugal,” Queiroz was quoted.

The former Manchester United assistant manager later said that his comments were taken out of context, describing the way they were reported as "dishonesty, a scam, execrable, a meanness that has no limits".

Japan appoints more bid ambassadors
Hiroaki Morishima, who played in the 1998 and 2002 FIFA World Cup (scoring against Tunisia in 2002), is the latest Japanese football legend to join the bid in its campaign to host the 2022 finals.

He joins current international Keisuke Honda, who was named on as an ambassador on Sunday.

“The bid ambassadors are the public faces of Japan’s bid,” the bid team said in a statement.

“Their task is to promote the bid in order to win the support of FIFA, the football confederations, and the general public, both domestically and internationally.”


By INSIDER’s James Corbett and Mark Bisson

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