Southeast Asia to promote 2030 World Cup bid
Reuters - Tuesday 12 April 2011, 09:08
BANGKOK, April 12 (Reuters) - Southeast Asian nations hope
spreading the financial burden across the region will give them
the advantage in their bid to host the World Cup in 2030.
World football's governing body FIFA may take another decade
to decide on the host for the 2030 finals, but the region's
footballing federation (AFF) are the second party to express an
interest in hosting the football showpiece event after Argentina
and Uruguay said they were interested in lodging a joint bid.
AFF nations will form a committee aimed at promoting their
bid, the details of which will include special lanes at regional
airports to facilitate transport to games, Malaysian foreign
minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman told Bernama news agency.
"It will be a unifying factor for the ASEAN community if we
could host the World Cup," he said after a foreign ministers
meeting on Monday.
The proposal is likely to involve all 11 of the AFF's member
nations, which will raise logistical and financial questions.
"We thought if we made a joint bid, if we share facilities,
then it's a bearable cost," Singapore foreign minister George
Yeo told Today newspaper.
"ASEAN, as a whole, will be a big country like Brazil or the
United States and if they can host it so can we."
The 2014 finals are set to be staged in Brazil, followed by
Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022.