Calling a foul

BIZSPORT

It was a decision that wasn't very popular in some parts of the world. Sometime ago, the world's governing body for football, FIFA, decided that all continents should be given a chance to host what is easily the largest and most popular quadrennial sporting event after the Olympic Games.

FIFA had decided that the World Cup, held every four years, would be held by rotation in each continent.

This may help FIFA, which like sports officials is always looking for worldwide support in terms of vote banks in the sport, but it also had some implications that didn't make great economic sense.

It's hardly surprising that every nation "" even tiny ones that barely show up on the map "" would like to host the World Cup. The tournament brings in huge economic benefits for the host country, in terms of mileage, tourism possibilities and sponsorships.

Asia hosted the 2002 World Cup and before that in 1998 it was in France and in 1994 it was the United States. The World Cup returns to Europe in 2006, when Germany hosts it, and then it will travel to Africa in 2010 and South America in 2014.

Africa has never hosted a World Cup and South America last held in 1970 in Mexico. Asia had its first World Cup in 2002 and China hopes to have it sometime in the future.

Sure, Europe sends the largest number of teams to the 32-team competition, which itself has become a point of discussion.

A field of 32 means a long drawn out competition and attendant problems in the form of influx of visitors (sometimes unruly), creation of facilities to cater for such huge numbers and so on. But the number of teams was increased to 32 to keep Asia and Africa happy by granting them more spots in the competition.

'Kaiser' Franz Beckenbauer, president of the 2006 World Cup organising committee in Germany, and a winner both as a player and manager, has recently lashed out at the people who agreed to the policy of rotation.

On a recent visit to Dubai, he was quoted as saying, "UEFA (the European part of FIFA) made a big mistake by accepting FIFA's rotation policy in my opinion. Europe cannot wait up to 24-years to host the World Cup. It is the biggest market, and the World Cup without Europe is not a World Cup."

Apart from the long wait that may be in store for Europe, he has also questioned the wisdom of granting a World Cup to Africa.

He asked, "Can one African country organise an event with 32 countries and more than one million visitors? Maybe South Africa can, maybe Morocco. I just don't know if it is a wise move bringing it to Africa."

FIFA will make its final decision over the African host nation in mid-May.

South Africa is confident of winning the bid ahead of Egypt and Morocco. South Africa lost out to Germany in 2006 and now it feels it is perfectly placed to host the event.

The South African bid, according to experts, is on track and campaigning has been very strong. Yet, Egypt is also said to have a strong bid and has been working hard.

Morocco, too, is a strong contender as the game is very popular there. Morocco is seen as a stronger candidate than Egypt, mainly because of its proximity to Europe and it has a strong bidding team and good organising capabilities.

Coming back to Europe, it has hosted the most World Cups, but now, as the world shrinks "" in a manner of speaking "" and with the advancement of TV technology and communciation, the organisational capacities of other countries have grown in a big way.

For instance, it is well accepted that Japan and Korea did a great job of co-hosting the event in 2002. It also meant the big event was travelling around, as it is meant to be, rather than being stationed in one continent.