By Andrew Warshaw
May 17 – Harold Mayne-Nicholls (pictured), President of the Chilean Football Association, will head up the three-man FIFA inspection team visiting prospective hosts for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups this summer.
Mayne-Nicholls’s delegation will also include Indonesia’s Dali Tahir from the FIFA Ethics Committee as well as German Jurgen Muller who is head of event management for the world governing body.
The inspection visits, starting in Japan in mid-July, represent the final and potentially pivotal stage before FIFA votes on December 2 where to hold both World Cups.
The schedule has been deliberately designed to take into account the various time zones, religious holidays and weather conditions and will make good reading for Qatar who, as already reported by insideworldfootball, will be last on the list during the coollest part of the summer.
The FIFA team is likely to be supplemented by a number of other as yet unannounced officials for each of the nine destinations.
The dates are as follows: July 19-22, Japan; July 22-25 South Korea; July 26-29, Australia; August 9-12: Holland/Belgium; August 16-19, Russia; August 23-26, England; August 30-September 2, Spain/Portugal; September 6-9, United States; September 13-17, Qatar.
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