to how the votes will fall
Nawaal Deane
Voting to decide the host of the 2006 soccer World Cup will take place in three rounds through a process of elimination, with the country receiving the fewest votes falling out of the bidding after each round. All executive members of the Federation of International Football Association (Fifa) will vote in each round.
Fifa’s 24-member executive is divided into the following blocs: Uefa (Europe), 8 votes; Conmebol (South America), 3; Africa, 4; Asia, 4; North and Central America, 3; Oceania, 1; and Fifa president Sepp Blatter, 1. The winner will need an outright majority of 13 votes to host the tournament.
In the first round members will vote for each of the five bidding countries: Brazil, Morocco, England, Germany and South Africa.
If any of the countries receives 13 or more votes, that country will win the bid and voting will not continue. If there is no majority the country with the fewest votes will fall out, leaving four countries.
Possible countries to be eliminated in the first round:
l Brazil may be eliminated if the South American members vote for South Africa on the basis that South Africa will back Brazil for 2010.
l Morocco may also be eliminated by receiving the fewest votes. Morocco is also seen as the country the least prepared with regards to technical infrastructure.
l England might be eliminated as its bid is not being backed by Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has called for England’s withdrawal.
Possible votes in the first round, based on the assumption that the Confederation of African Football (Caf) does not have to vote in a bloc.
South Africa: eight votes – from Paraguay (Nicolas Leoz), Costa Rica (Isaac Sasso), Argentina (Julio Grondona), Botswana (Ishmail Bhamjee), Fifa president (Sepp Blatter), Cameroon (Issa Hayatou), Mali (Amadou Diakite) and Brazil (Ricardo Teixeira).
Germany: seven or eight votes – from Turkey (Senez Erzik), Spain (Angel Llona), Belgium (Michel d’Hooghe), Sweden (Uefa boss Lennart Johansson), Italy (Antonio Matarrese), Malta (Joseph Mifsud), Norway (Per Ravin Omdal) and, perhaps, South Korea (Mong-Joon Chung).
England: three votes – from New Zealand (Charles Dempsey), Thailand (Morawi Makudi) and Scotland (David Will).
Brazil: the three South American votes if South Africa does not get them.
Morocco: three votes – from Saudia Arabia (Abdullah Al-Dabal), Qatar (Mohamed Hamman) and Tunisia (Slim Aloulou).
The two “mystery” votes are those belonging to Chuck Blazer from the United States and Trinidad’s Jack Warner, who have given no indication which country they are likely to vote for. They could vote for England or South Africa. South Korea is also difficult to predict.
In the second round the 24 members will vote again on the four remaining countries.
Voting will move to the third round if a majority vote still has not been reached.
By this stage it is assumed that either Brazil and Morocco will have been eliminated, leaving South Africa to pick up some of their votes, while the European vote would still be split by Germany and England.
The members will vote and the two countries will go to the fourth round if a majority is not reached.
In the final round it is assumed that the showdown will be between South Africa and Germany.
If both countries receive 12 votes each then Fifa president Sepp Blatter will make the decision. Blatter has often stated his preference for an African host, but the Swiss has close ties to Germany.