Candidates for 2023 WWC

My own TL;DR of the bid evaluation document:

AUSNZL: 4.1
Pro - best-prepared, strong social media presence, 2x investment vs other bids, low weather stress (i.e. not in N.Hemisphere summer)
Con - no large cities, multiple time zones, air transit required

JPN: 3.9
Pro - also well-prepared, best accomadations, amazing city-to-city transit
Con - preferred shift in calendar (up a month and a half), unclear domestic communications strategy

COL: 2.8
Pro - "new region" appeal, low cost of hosting, easy TV coordination for Americas market (USA, MEX, BRA, etc.)
Con - facility quality & safety concerns, low commercial revenue potential

 

If I had to wager a guess as to who wins the 2023WWC, I think AUSNZL is the safe bet. There's not much separating them and the JPN bid at the moment, but AUSNZL has the slight edge in evaluation, plus there is a small hint of "new region" appeal since it does hit OFC, and AUS is certainly further away from the rest of Asia than JPN is. COL probably doesn't stand much of a chance *unless* that "new region" appeal really does factor in to votes quite a lot.

Revisitng this:

It's only 34 votes (the 3 from the council will be unable due to being from bidding countries) so 18 votes are needed to win.

----UEFA's 9 are still probably split between the two AFC bids - say 5 vs 4 in favor of AUS/NZL
----AFC itself has 6 available votes, probably favoring JPN, so 4 vs 2 in that case
----CAF's 7 are hard to predict, but I can see all three bids getting votes from this block since there might be some "small nation solidarity" votes to COL, so maybe 4-2-1 COL-AUSNZL-JPN
----C'CAF 5 are also something I could see split - the 2 NAFU votes are probably for AUSNZL, 2 UNCAF votes for COL, and 1 CFU vote for JPN
----C'BOL's 4 available votes are almost certainly for COL
----OFC's 2 available votes are almost certainly for AUSNZL
----Infantino... IDK

This adds up to 13 AUSNZL, 10 JPN, and 10 COL, with the one vote from Infantino still TBD. If it really is 13-10-10 in the first round and he doesn't vote of AUSNZL, he would single-handedly determine which bid is dropped in the first round, which could massively shift how the second round of voting goes.

 

Brazil's president Bolsonaro would never support a women's sports tournament.

 

After looking at the climate summaries in FIFA's report, I certainly hope that JPN is not chosen.

Japanese cities show higher temperature averages than Colombian cities do.
Which is why JPN wants the tournament rescheduled a month earlier.
https://img.fifa.com/image/upload/hygmh1hhjpg30lbd6ppe.pdf

But then, JPN puts foot in mouth when it says that players will benefit by moving the tournament closer to the end of professional club season.

 

[Rant starts]
I really have no idea how a backward, crime ridden, drug infested and oppressive country like Columbia could even be considered. There were three countries that I traveled to some years ago, out of about 20 or so, where I felt my life was in jeopardy and Columbia was two of them. I would not travel there again on a bet. I felt safer and freer in East Germany or Bulgaria.

At least the other two have the best chances and I doubt the drug cartels in Columbia will spend enough on bribes to get the nod.

I REALLY do not understand the process FIFA goes through to select host countries. It is clear that there is little real thought that happens and little common sense. On the men's side the choices are just as perplexing as Russia was a bad choice and Qatar will prove to be even worse.

Clearly FIFA does not have human rights or safety as part of the criteria it really uses.
[Rant over]

As far as the other choices I see little to choose from. I liked the time I spent in Australia and they mostly speak my primary language, English. Even with that I think I would prefer Japan. For me the best time I spent overseas was in Japan and, once I figured out their differences from what I was used to, I found them the friendliest people anywhere in the world. The rituals practiced in many/most? Japanese households were somehow very comforting. I actually really liked the formality of those rituals.

But I will not be traveling to any WWC again as my health pretty much prevents it but I would also find it a little easier to adapt my schedule to watch matches from Japan than from Australia. Of course there also would be that it is possible the balls in Australia would not bounce correctly or even just fly off into space since they are near the bottom of the world.

I guess having two out of three possible selections that I believe are acceptable is good but it could be better.

 

The District of Columbia?

​

 

I hear you Bubba, British Columbia must be one of the wildest and dangerous swaths of land I have ever encountered, back when I was a gold prospector. Them bears will pick your wallet as you play dead.

Seriously though, you must have traveled to a tough neighborhood in Colombia, in order to fear for your life. Each country in the developing world has those cities, we have those in the good ol' USA. You just gotta know where you are going to.

I'm sure Adelaide and Sydney must have their bad side of the tracks too. Should I go ahead and call Australia backward/crime-ridden/etc then?

 

Actually I traveled through most of the country. In most cities it was common for people to go about armed and not little pistols but army style rifles. Shootings and other forms of violence was quite common virtually everywhere I went and what passed for law enforcement was in the hands of the crime lords. Even kidnapping for ransom was common and was so ritualized that the "police" just told people to pay and whoever was kidnapped would be returned unharmed.

My job was to get to know people but in Columbia the "average" person was so afraid of the military and the government and the police that I was no6 really able to talk to or listen to what people were saying. It was so bad that even the "resistance" was corrupt.

Are there "good" people in Columbia? Yes. But the government and military are so bad that they feared for their lives and would not even open up after many beers or shots of rum.

 

@FanOfFutbol , brah I am not convinced that you spent much time in that country. You keep misspelling its name, and that's something foreigners correct quickly after traveling there.

Regardless, the picture you painted clearly comes out the previous century. Things change man. Some countries do improve their quality of life after decades. Not saying the crime has disappeared, but several Colombian cities are far from being backward.

Civilians will mistrust authorities if they act with brutality. Hence our current wave of civil protests across the USA.

 

That might be true but really it is the danger of spell check without context checking. I actually spent a little over nine months there and never once was I asked to spell Colombia. (I double checked this time.) I do not see how the spelling of the country's name has anything to do with the time spent there. I have lived in the US for over a total of 40 years but, except for the internet which did not exist when I was traveling, I have not written "The United States of America" more that about a dozen times. In fact I do not remember using any form of written communication most anywhere in the world while traveling except for Japan and Laos where I was intrigued by the beauty of their respective written languages.

As far a change goes it is possible even for states like Colombia or North Korea or Bulgaria but I see little that makes me think they really have changed enough but I have not been there since 1975 so you might be correct that I am misjudging them.

However, after all that, I still do not think they should even be considered as hosts for the WWC. Their economy is just not, in my belief, at a level where thay can assure the safety and reasonable comfort for an event like the WWC.

 

Not to discredit your experience while you were there, @FanOfFutbol , but as @jagum pointed out several posts back, the Colombia of today is very different than the Colombia you experienced decades ago. Are some things still an issue? Yes, and some of those things were mentioned in the FIFA evaluation. But it's not nearly as bad as you're making it out to be.

And on the economic side of things... If South Africa could put on a great MWC ten years ago, Colombia can put on a great WWC three years from now.

 

That's a better take than calling a country backward for something that happened in 1975. Imagine if Germany 2006 was evaluated using experiences when the Stasi moved along the Berlin Wall.

FIFA pointed out key shortcomings for Colombia. Among them:
- Inconsistent hotel star-rating system. Armenia, Pereira, Manizales, Bucaramanga and Cucuta have hotels which do not meet international standards, despite their inflated star ratings.
- Security concerns about crime in Cali.
- Low seating capacity at Bogota (-28%), proposed for opening and final matches.
- Mediocre transportation and accommodation at Manizales. That city really pulled down Colombia's scores.
- Restrictive commercial agreements in place, which limit domestic and continental media sales opportunities for FIFA.

 

I'm interested in the tables on Page 12 of https://resources.fifa.com/image/up...tion-of-bids.pdf?cloudid=dxohjnzw2apxfri10pir with the expected attendance by city size for "European" and "Non-European." I wonder if FIFA would ever make separate European and Non-European expectations for a men's tournament. I'm not saying FIFA is wrong or sexist to do that for women because the popularity of women's football relative to men's football isn't the same everywhere, and it's okay to acknowledge that. I'm going to present the numbers on one list where the first is expected attendance in Europe, the second is expected attendance anywhere else, and the third is the ratio:

100,000: 15,607, 3,700, 4.22
200,000: 19,921, 4,949, 4.03
500,000: 27,505, 7,269, 3.78
1,000,000: 35,108, 9,722, 3.61
2,000,000: 44,813, 13,002, 3.45
3,000,000: 51,690, 15,413, 3.35
4,000,000: 57,200, 17,390, 3.29
5,000,000: 61,875, 19,096, 3.24

The ratio decreases, but even for the biggest cities it's a giant difference. A city outside of Europe with 5,000,000 people getting lower attendance than a city in Europe with 200,000 people is a big deal. That assumes large stadium capacities because there are plenty of big cities in the world without any stadiums that hold 61,875. I was thinking about if the table is general or about the specific candidates, but none of the candidates are European, so it must be in general. Countries outside of Europe vary a lot, and the same size city would get much higher attendance in the USA than in Colombia.

FIFA said the tables came from a model without providing more detail. If you think the expectations are way off, don't blame me.

 

It'd be an AFC/OFC playoff most likely, we discussed it earlier I think.

That is really interesting... seems like an over-generalization on crowds, but maybe it's just for brief reference? Do they say why they made the list?

​

 

If FIFA assigns two host slots to both host nations, then giving OFC a half slot left would probably make sense... Especially and AFC/OFC playoff. That said, since we *are* expanding the WWC (again), I think it would be interesting to let an OFC minnow in directly (especially since we're already highly likely to get a minnow from every confed aside from UEFA anyway). My thought from before:

(That's a four-team, four-confed tournament for the last slot)

I find it hard to think UEFA will get less than 12 spots in a 32-team tournament. UEFA always got at least 13 in the MWC 32-team tournaments, and I think UEFA's rep in WoSo is comparable to its rep in BroSo.

 

Suppose you put the USA (or Canada or Japan) in Europe’s position and blended Europe in with the rest of the world? I wonder how different -- or similar -- the chart would work. It seems very odd.

 

Take that table with a huge grain of salt.... If you read the text, it's all based on BroSo domestic leagues, and even talks about the 2026 MWC even though the document overall is about the 2023 WWC. And the section itself is about the viability of building new stadiums that will see use beyond the tournament they're constructed for - i.e. avoiding "white elephant" stadium construction. I don't think it's an indication of expected attendances AT the WWC itself by any stretch.

 

From earlier in the same document. Looks like it was based on men's club football using the top European Leagues and a selection of other leagues from elsewhere.

"
To test the above proposition, an analysis was conducted to determine the correlation between a given city’s population and stadium attendances. Separate European and non-European studies were undertaken, each considering five leagues from the 2012/13 season through the 2017/18 season. Data on average attendances was sourced for the following leagues from data published by the respective leagues and/or specialised football websites:
 For the European study – Bundesliga (Germany), La Liga (Spain), Ligue 1 (France), the Premier League (England) and Serie A (Italy). These were selected as they represent the top five leagues in Europe.
 For the non-European study – MLS (USA/Canada), Liga Aguila (Colombia), Serie A (Brazil), K-League (Korea Republic) and ABSA Premiership (South Africa). These were selected based on geographical distribution (they cover four of the remaining five confederations), the existence of established, well developed football leagues, and the availability of attendance data.
In the definition of city population, the study applied Eurostat’s definition of “greater city” for European cities and the closest comparable definition for the non-European cities monitored through various official national sources. Adjustments were made for cities with multiple clubs based on a clear methodology."

 

But why are these part of the bid documents for the Women's World Cup?

 

You expect any dealings with FIFA or any high level sports organization to make sense? Why?
I believe that it is included to try to bury the selection committee with paperwork, or at least words. The more complex the documentation is the greater effect the bribes, masquerading as various perks, will have. It is the same reason laws and other "official" documents are so numerous and complex. The more complex the presentation is the greater the effect of the fringe stuff and the more influence the money involved can have.

 

As a mentioned in my previous post, it's a way for them to evaluate how likely "new stadium" plans are to be useful after the tournament itself. That is, it would be viewed as a high-risk stadium plan if they were building in a city that wasn't big enough to support the stadium once the tournament is over. I guess the implication is that, even for a WWC, the longevity of the stadiums used is more likely determined by the BroSo domestic league in the respective cities than any WoSo activity there.

 

Comparison with 1 subset: men's Bundesliga.

Bundesliga 2018-2019 attendance averages are far from table values, which correlate urban population to expected attendance.

table data: urban pop vs expected attendance (open) table data: urban pop vs expected attendance (close)

100,000: 15,607
200,000: 19,921
500,000: 27,505
1,000,000: 35,108
2,000,000: 44,813
3,000,000: 51,690
4,000,000: 57,200
5,000,000: 61,875

The table indicates that each additional million of inhabitants generated mediocre attendance gains: +27.6% -> +15.3% -> +10.6% -> +8.1% .
A 5M city generated +26.7K attendance (+76.2%) over a 1M city.

For German urban data available, 6 of 7 cities surpassed table numbers.
I am unsure whether those table numbers should serve as base argument for venue construction.

Bundesliga 2018-2019 attendance averages
(attendance avg ; city pop ; urban pop):
80,889 ; 587,010 ; 5,302,179 ----- 130.7% attendance vs table
75,000 ; 1,471,508 ; 2,606,021 -- 167.3% attendance vs table
60,942 ; 260,654 ; no urban ------ no data
54,551 ; 634,830 ; 2,787,724 ----- 121.7% attendance vs table
49,764 ; 753,056 ; 2,319,029 ----- 111.0% attendance vs table
49,320 ; 3,769,495 ; 3,769,495 --- 95.4 % attendance vs table
49,668 ; 261,454 ; no urban ------- no data
43,980 ; 619,294 ; 1,220,000 ------ 125.2% attendance vs table
41,256 ; 569,352 ; no urban ------- no data
40,373 ; 518,365 ; 763,854 --------- 146.7% attendance vs table
38,365 ; 538,068 ; no urban -------- no data
38,331 ; 587,857 ; no urban -------- no data
28,623 ; 295,135 ; no urban -------- no data
28,455 ; 35,442 ; no urban ---------- no data (80.2% city pop fits in venue)
27,990 ; 163,838 ; no urban -------- no data
26,247 ; 217,118 ; no urban -------- no data
24,484 ; 124,151 ; no urban -------- no data
23,895 ; 230,241 ; no urban -------- no data

 

OFFICIAL: Japan has withdrawn from consideration for hosting the #WWC2023 and put its support behind @AsOne2023.

— Dan Orlowitz (@aishiterutokyo) June 22, 2020

 

DAMN that's a bombshell! Well without that third bid, I guess it's basically a guarantee we're going to AUSNZL next WWC. With AUSNZL and JPN splitting votes, I think COL had a chance. Now, no way.