(This article originally appeared at Some Canadian Guys Writing About Soccer on January 26, 2010. Wondering what this is? Click here.)
A day after indicating that the 2018 World Cup will likely be awarded to one of the European bidders — either England, Russia or one of the joint bids of Holland/Belgium or Spain/Portugal — FIFA President Sepp Blatter made the surprising announcement today that the 2022 World Cup will be awarded to a country from the CONCACAF region.
“This is outstanding news,” said Sunil Gulati, president of the United States Soccer Federation, who are one of the bidding countries. “For the World Cup to return to the USA is a sure sign of soccer’s overwhelming popularity, and is the culmination of some very hard work by all of us on the bid committee.”
But Gulati’s excitement was tempered by a subsequent press release from FIFA clarifying its president’s remarks.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
“As it relates to the 2022 tournament,” the release said, “while the United States has submitted the only bid from this region thus far, we are open to considering all qualified bids.
“We are, as always, open to joint bids, following the success of the Korea/Japan World Cup in 2002 and Euro 2008, split between Austria and Switzerland. In 2022, we would consider any joint bids from this region, such as Honduras/El Salvador, Cuba/Costa Rica or Trinidad/Tobago. Many factors are still at play, and this bidding process is far from over.”
The Reserve Squad attempted to reach FIFA Vice President Jack Warner for comment, but an administrative worker at his Zurich office claimed that he was “unreachable” at the moment for undisclosed “luxury-yacht-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean reasons”.