By Paul Nicholson
June 10 – FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke has said that the vote to award the host country for the World Cup 2026 needs to be postponed in light of the current events circling FIFA.
Scheduled to go to the vote at the FIFA Congress in Kuala Lumpur in 2017, the process for announcing candidates and preparing bid submissions would need to begin now. Valcke says this is not practical and that the date for the vote will be put back.
Speaking about the importance of protecting the World Cup from the minute it goes to the bidders up to the award of the host country following a meeting with the Russia 2018 Local Organising Committee in Samara, Russia, Valcke said that “due to the situation I think it is nonsense to begin this process”.
The 2026 World Cup was widely reckoned to be going to the US – if it decided to bid, which has been unclear as US Soccer Federation president Sunil Gulati has maintained that there would have to be a change in bidding rules if they were to bid again.
CONCACAF’s former president Jeffrey Webb (arrested in Switzerland last month as part of the swoop by law authorities on FIFA officials) had been a strong advocate for it being his confederation’s turn and few were arguing with him. However, following the decision by the executive committee to follow FIFA statutes that say that only countries from the continent that hosted the previous World Cup may not bid, the door to 2026 was opened again to the Europeans to bid.
The vote for the 2026 World Cup will be the first that will be voted for by the whole of the FIFA congress, rather than just the executive committee.
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