AFC preferred candidate and bid deadline of 31/10.
It will all be over before Danny gets in the door to be able to jinx it.
Seemingly back on.
https://madrastribune.com/2023/10/2...onesia-about-possible-bid-for-2034-world-cup/
The AFC president has said it personally without consultation. Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore said they backed the Saudi bid.
Now Indonesia are saying they are having ongoing discussions about cohosting with us. We as part of the AFC have not said we support the Saudi bid. Don't the FIFA congress make the decision since the Qatar decision - 210-220 delegates.
31/10/2023 is only to confirm that you are a confirmed bidder. You can pull out before 31/10/2024 and join or add other countries to your bid until then.
If so Saudi Arabia would expect the following votes
Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Iran, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, UAE, Yemen
Australia would expect
American Samoa, Cook Islands, Fiji, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tahiti, Tonga, Vanuatu, Australia, Indonesia
That leaves around 180 votes up for grabs.
Assuming a point of difference is delivering a Mens World Cup to the OFC which will never get one on its own I think we would find NZ in the bid as well. Then there are 9 existing rectangular stadiums we could use. Football is established in the Middle East and they just had the Qatar World Cup. A joint ASEAN/OFC bid opens up new frontiers for football. The ASEAN and Oceania areas have a population of around 700 million people. Singapore, Perth, China and India are all relatively close in time zones so catering for another 3 billion people in terms of viewing. With a 5 hour time difference between Singapore and Auckland times could also be staggered to cater for Europe and the Americas.
Singapore National
National Stadium
Jakarta International Stadium
Stadion Gelora Bung Tomo
Eden Park
Perth
Lang Park
Homebush
SFS
plus Adelaide Oval.
The upgrade planned for our previous bid for Newcastle would take us to 11. Temp stands in Townsville would take it to 12. An larger than planned new Canberra Stadium would take it 13 ($700m already committed). Then we need a Melbourne option.
I would want the MRS extended to 45,000 but more likely to be MCG in spite of AFL protests.