Mexico urges Americas to get behind USA World Cup bid

May 7 – Mexico has thrown its support behind the United States bid to host the 2018 or 2022 World Cup and urged the rest of the region to back it.

Justino Compean, the President of the Mexican Football Federation, said before his team played Ecuador in a sold-out New Meadowlands Stadium in New Jersey that every nation in the CONCACAF region needs to back one region.

Mexico had been the original bidders for the 2018 or 2022 World Cup but withdrew last September claiming that the global economic crisis had meant that they could not afford it.

Compean said: ”The US has the best stadiums in CONCACAF.

“There are no comparisons.

“The infrastructure throughout [CONCACAF] of our stadiums is not comparable to the US.

“So we decided we need one bid to come from CONCACAF and we are supporting the only bidder from our region.”

The US is bidding against Russia, England, Australia and the joint bids of Spain-Portugal and Netherlands-Belgium. Qatar, South Korea and Japan are only in the 2022 race.

Sunil Gulati , the President of the US Soccer Federation, expressed “extreme confidence” America will be selected for one of the tournaments.

He said: ”There is a general belief that ’18 is going to go to Europe, it seems.

“We can go to 2022 in that case.

“But we are just as interested in ’18.”