2018 and 2022 - Rate the bids

Europe is the most successful continent in the world cup - by far. It also is the largest contributor to FIFA and the world cup financially - by far.

 

9 World Cups to Europe and 9 World Cups to South America. I wouldn't exactly say that's by far especially considering a European country has never won a World Cup away from Europe. And considering their has been more World Cups hosted in Europe than any other continent. However, I do think Europe is the most successful place for futbol/football/soccer in the world. But if you picked an all European team against an all South American team I think the all South American team would win 50% of the matches. But again none of this has anything to do with how anyone should rate the 2018/2022 World Cup bids.

 

I think you're wrong on both counts. 9 world cups to South America as opposed to 9 to Europe shows you don't know much about who's won the tournament so I dare say you don't know much about finances.

The most successful (financially) world cup was hosted by North America and there is A LOT of money in Asia, if UEFA contributes the most financially (and I don't think they do) it's definitely not by much.

 

Add Spurs planned 58k seater to that list.

 

Not just world cup wins, total up finalist and 3rd/4th placings, UEFA has the most.

Also I don't think you realise just how vast UEFA is or how wealthy it is, the EU alone has a 25% bigger economy than the USA let alone including all the other countries such as Russia, eastern europe, Israel etc..

 

I don't think you all realize how big the television and sponsorship moneys from North America and East Asia are.

 

For the 2003-2006 period, Europe supplied over 45% of FIFA's total broadcasting revenue and more than the rest of the world excluding the US (page 20 from the below link).

http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/administration/51/52/65/2006_fifa_ar_en_1766.pdf

For 2007 and 2008 that percentage rose to 56% (page 74 from below link)

http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/administration/01/03/94/23/fifa_ar08_eng.pdf

 

What Lanman and Sendorange said. If you had to be really harsh about it, you could say that the world cup would be trivial without Europe, while Europe in turn is perfectly capable of hosting a European tournament with global appeal. Fifa realises this full well but they're trying to keep up this weird balancing act of keeping their sponsors happy and at the same time pretending they're some class of charity or NGO with the aim of promoting football worldwide.

 

South Africa and to Brazil might be acts of "charity", but the US and Korpan where motivated almost solely by money. The 3 countries (and Canada if you assume the growth in the US game is tied fairly closely via MLS) would have an affluent population of 520 million or basically another EU + Swiss/Norway/Iceland. Ignoring these markets to focus solely on Europe, a region the sport dominates completely would be unwise to say the least.

I'm not saying don't give the Europeans more World Cups than other confederations (I think guaranteeing UEFA 1 out of every 2.5 or so is about right), but the growth of the sport and the most dramatic gains in popularity, media attention, and money won't be realized in Europe.

 

One day, maybe other continents will be as financially strong as UEFA one day, but not now. As pointed out, FIFA contributes over 50% of FIFA's broadcasting revenues. US maybe the largest single contributor, but UEFA is the largest federation by a long way. UEFA contributes over half of all monies to FIFA. This means that the other 5 federations contribute under half.

I think I mentioned this before. UEFA, at the moment, really does not flex it's muscles as much as it could. The WC without Europe would collapse, whilst the European Championships makes a pretty good substitute.

 

Agree with this and am somewhat suprised Eufa doesn't throw their weight around a bit more.....invite Argentina and Brazil to the "European" Championships....and tell FIFA to go stick it.

 

Because we are a nice, cuddly bunch that believes in world peace, and all that tree-hugging rubbish...

 

The reason is that UEFA knows what would happen if they did that.

 

UEFA is an extremely profitable organisation on its own accord. Why should UEFA care about the popularity of the game in other parts of the world? That FIFA cares about this, fair enough, but why should it be any concern of UEFA? UEFA isn't a charity, it's an organisation that exists to promote the interests of UEFA members. For that reason I agree with the other posters before me that UEFA doesn't throw its weight about enough in world cup matters.

 

What would that be then? UEFA will live long and prosper even without the world cup, what would happen to the world cup though? FIFA has one successful international tournament in its portfolio, that's it. None of its other efforts (club world cup, what have you) have ever been taken seriously. The world cup virtually is FIFA's raison d'etre.

 

They wouldn't get Brazil and Argentina without the rest of South America. Europe and South America already control FIFA between them if they want to so what's the point of going alone? I'm sure UEFA could go alone for a while, but UEFA benefits from controlling World Football anyway. Any talk of a UEFA withdrawal from FIFA is a nonsense, as FIFA is already UEFA's organisation.

 

Eh?

 

Who's saying UEFA doesn't flex its muscles? They might not do it publicly, but I'm willing to bet they do it behind the scenes. 2006 went to Germany despite Blatter supporting South Africa (probably his biggest political loss), the rotation got abandoned/changed after 2 World Cups away from Europe, the club world cup got shortened according to the wishes of the Europeans... Yes, there will be a couple more World Cups away from Europe in the future, and since 1998, we lost 1 WC berth (not including the host), but that was hard to avoid, with the rising importance of Asia. Just because you don't read of Platinis demands in the media doesn't mean that the UEFA isn't pushing their issues... In fact, there are enough loudmouths in Europe that UEFA doesn't even need to make public demands and statements, others will do that for them (eg in Germany Bayerns Rummenigge and Hoeness).

 

UEFA get what they want in FIFA. The only time UEFA has had a disagreement with FIFA was a political battle between two European Football Officials, which one person wanted to dress up as a UEFA / FIFA battle. Check out the numbers on the exec committee. Why would UEFA want to go alone, when they controll the international organisation as it is.

 

How many Europeans are there in the world cup allocation committee?

Look I'm not even going against UEFA helping to further the football cause worldwide. It's not its responsibility to do that though and people need to remember that. What bugs me is some of the posts on this thread arguing against Europe getting too many world cups. If UEFA would really push its weight about then maybe one in four world cups would be held outside of Europe. But they're not. FIFA's existence essentially depends on UEFA's support and that creates a rather ironic situation in the world cup decision making process if you ask me.

 

UEFA also sees the value of their clubs and their competitions increase when the popularity of the sport increases. So while it may hurt in the short term, having a World Cup outside of Europe sets the groundwork for bigger profits for UEFA in the future.

 

The popularity of the clubs in Europe is not dependent on membership of FIFA. The money UEFA gets comes from TV rights for its own competitions. Which are hugely popular. There might be less of a talent pool to pick from with players opting to play in the world cup, and not in UEFA, but given that a WC rolls around once every 4 years, and in the mean time, where can the players go to earn the kind of cash they do in the European game?

If UEFA steps out of FIFA, players will, largely, still want to play in Europe. The WC may be gone, but the option to make £100,000 a week for many years is a still going to be a strong enough draw.

Given the strength of the European leagues, FIFA trying to sanction them would be as effective as holding the piece of paper it is written on, up, and trying to block out the sun.

Ultimately, the popularity of the European leagues is based on the players they have. Given the money in the game, and the primacy of the European leagues in the world, people will still watch. Even if they are not in FIFA.

 

Between Europe and South America (which is what I was counting) there are 12 of 25 votes on the FIFA Executive Committee.

I'm not one of them. I think its only fair that 2018 is in Europe.

I agree with you. My point was originally against someone who said UEFA can always go it alone. I expressed it poorly, but my main point was that UEFA has no need to go it alone as they have vast power within FIFA, and that going alone won't make much difference. My personal belief is that if UEFA did ditch FIFA then it would harm the game in all areas in the medium term (including UEFA).

 

I think you vastly underestimate the importance of the World Cup for the game. Yes, European leagues and competitions make a lot of money all over the world, which doesn't appear to be directly related to the FIFA and the World Cup, but I'm pretty sure 90% or more of the Asian fans first came into contact with football at a World Cup. The first time I remember being fascinated by football on tv was the World Cup 1990, and we had the 2nd or 3rd best league in the World at the time, and a Bundesliga stadium (HSV) about 10 km from my home!

The spectacle of the World Cup is a huge advertising campaign, and the main thing it advertises is not Coca Cola, it's football, specifically European professional football, where all the World Cup stars play.

 

Well put. Without the world cup everybody loses, allso the clubs.
I think it is only fair that Europe gets atleast one in three world cups because the continent has most traveling fans and the most countries capable of hosting etc.
If Fifa maybe wants to continue with a rotation policy they should maybe go with three timezones(Europe/Africa, North and south America, Asia/Oceania). That would give Europe 2018, Asia Oceania 2022 and 2026 to america.