Personally, I think that's a very good reason WHY Australia might get the 2010 World Cup.

You could have said the very same about Japan, Korea and South Africa about their infrastructure (and indeed Switzerland, Poland and Ukraine for the European Championships). If FIFA are wanting to expand the sport, taking the World Cup to Australia is a very good means of doing that. The game in Australia has grown in recent years, the A-League is proving popular and the national team is doing fairly well.

Australia isn't exactly a stranger to hosting big events, the only thing harming them is the fact that at present, most of the main venues are all clustered in Sydney and Melbourne.

Yes, here in England we could host the tournament tomorrow (and still leave out stadia that puts much of the world to shame) but I'm not sure that FIFA wants that.

The 2010 World Cup has already been given to South Africa, and the 2014 to Brazil.

Am I right in thinking the World Cup goes round each continent? Or is it just handed out now?

Not anymore.

They scrapped that rule because the 2014 World Cup, due to be hosted in South America, only had one bid for host nation (Brazil).

Blatter only did it in the first place to get enough votes to stay on as boss of FIFA then when he was re-elected he scrapped it.

whats the sin bin joke section

2018.....will Harry Kewell by fit by then?

harry is cool . very fit now we won through too the next round of asia qulifier

we beat china

cool is going serie a italy

No, you lost to China, but qualified anway.

yes we lost yesterday. but beat them last week

Well we didn't have much of a problem hosting Eurp 1996.

What's the issue about Wembley either? It's already built. We already have all of the stadiums required for the tournament and there are only one or two that will require expansion.

What's the issue about England not being good enough either? Are South Africa? Are Australia?

we got ripped off in the world cup

we could have won

what happened with that penalty kick will never be forgotin .that way of loseing just isnt the aussie way

you think we are going too let billions of chinese players too get in our way



. we want revenge on italy

You were beaten amidst mass scenes of whinging, whining and bleating about how unfair it all was.

I thought that was the only Aussie way of losing ever known.

Dont even think that tbh:

Wembley
Old Trafford
Emirates
St James Park
Liverpools new ground
COM
Stadium of Light
Evertons new ground

Suppose we could even try and get Wales to let us borrow the Millenium Stadium, or maybe even use Twickenham

you have made it very clear you dont like aussies . i wonder why . maybe you could let us know why

It's a little bit more complicated than that.

You are only allowed one city to have two host venues. London will probably have Wembley and The Emirates which would probably rule out the City of Manchester Stadium.

That said, it'd be interesting if Everton do end up moving to Kirkby.

CoM and OT in different cities? Not wanting to open up the age old debate, but it could prove useful in this case.

No-one likes Aussies pal. It's just something you'll have to get used to.

Probably depends how FIFA define "cities" - if you go by unitary authority then both OT and CoM could be used, although if you took the wider view you'd struggle to argue that they aren't both in what is widely perceived as Manchester.

But then you could just replace the COM with Villa Park without too much problem, and there a few other 40k+ grounds anyway

There are plenty of them no question.

Master Bates has sounded out a few upgrades of Elland Road which, by coincidence I'm sure, will be completed before 2018

Derby have a stadium that is up to scratch as well.

new zealand could share the world cup with us

There are plenty of new ones on the horizon on as well.

Birmingham hope to have a new, impressive looking, 50,000 all-seater gaff by that time

Not at present. Don't FIFA impose a minimum 40,000 criteria for the stadiums as well as the one stadium, one city rule?

At the moment we have stadiums that fit the bill in

London
Manchester
Birmingham
Liverpool
Leeds
Newcastle
Sunderland

That's seven with five cities/towns needing upgraded stadiums.

Possibly Sheffield, Derby, Middlesbrough, Leicester and Southampton??