November 18 – A coordinated bid from Southeast Asia, involving a number of countries including Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, could one day make a bid to host the World Cup, it has been claimed.
The plan has been discussed by the Association of South East Nations (ASEAN), whose members include Indonesia, who are already bidding for the 2018 or 2022 World Cup, although they are considered to be very much outsiders.
Thailand’s Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij believes that a bid involving several countries would have a better chance.
He said: “Together we have 580 million people, together we would rank as the fifth-largest country in the world.
“Why not?”
Besides Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, members of ASEAN are Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines Singapore and Vietnam.
Under Korn’s plans, eight of the 10 countries could each host a group of four teams in the competition.
He claimed that Japan and South Korea had set a co-hosting precedent in the 2002 World Cup, although FIFA President Sepp Blatter has claimed that that experiment was not a success organisationally and he is now against joint bids.
Southeast Asia has had experience staging a big tournament, when Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia jointly held the 2007 Asian Cup, although the use of four host countries was widely criticised.
Korn said: “It is a great idea.
“Imagine the eight streams in the World Cup, you can easily have a country in charge of each stream.
“We are talking in 10 years’ time.
“But it is good to have preparations made many years in advance.
“It would be wonderful for football, great for the ASEAN people and very good for ASEAN as an organisation, better than monetary union.”
