New Zealand is one of five countries, including England, France, Korea Republic and South Africa, who have declared an interest in hosting both the Women’s World Cup and the U-20 Women’s World Cup.
In principle, FIFA prefers these two tournaments to take place in the same country. South Africa are down to host the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in 2016.
New Zealand Football CEO Andy Martin says it’s a great opportunity for the country and the bid is high on the agenda for the organisation, which will play host to the FIFA U-20 World Cup next year.
“We’re now working hard with Sport New Zealand and other stakeholders just to assess the viability of putting a full bid in and the feasibility of how it would look for New Zealand,” Martin says.
He says NZF have until next month to reconfirm their interest in hosting the tournaments, with bids needing to be submitted to FIFA by the end of October 2014.
“I think it’s a very prestigious event, it would be a big coup for the country and now we’ve seen the opposition, I think there’s some strong countries competing against us, so we need to make sure that if we go into this we believe we’ve got a chance of winning it.”
For the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup 2018, five declarations of interest have been received: Bosnia And Herzegovina, Egypt, Finland, Northern Ireland and Sweden are aiming to host the competition. For the three women’s competitions, the deadline for submitting the hosting agreement together with all the signed bidding documents is 31 October 2014, with the final decision on the hosts currently scheduled to take place at the first FIFA Executive Committee meeting in 2015.
The bidding process has also been opened for four editions of the FIFA Club World Cup, FIFA’s major club competition. India and Japan have expressed a wish to host the tournament in 2015 and 2016, while Brazil, Japan and UAE want to host it in 2017 and 2018. The complete set of bidding documents has to be provided by 25 August 2014 and the Executive Committee will select the host in September 2014.
Finally, FIFA welcomes the high level of interest in hosting the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup 2017. A total of 12 countries are aiming to host the tournament: Argentina, Bahamas, Brazil, Cayman Islands, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Germany, Trinidad and Tobago, UAE and USA. These member associations will have to submit their definitive bids including all signed bidding and hosting documents by 1 October 2014. The host will be appointed by the Executive Committee at its meeting in December 2014.
For more on the world game go to www.fifa.com

Share