With suicide bombings, kidnappings and fighting in the streets, you would think Iraqis have enough to worry about. But sports officials in the troubled country are discussing a bid to host football’s World Cup — and they are asking England for advice about how to go about it.
Preliminary talks have taken place between the Iraqi football association and its Jordanian counterpart about a joint attempt to stage football’s showpiece tournament, Crown Prince Feisal al-Hussein of Jordan has revealed.
Germany will host the World Cup in 2006, after England’s bid ended in abject defeat, and South Africa in 2010, so the next possible opportunity will be in 2014.
The crown prince, whose elder brother Abdullah is king of Jordan, is in the UK for talks with sports minister Richard Caborn and Lord Coe, chairperson of the bid committee for a London 2012 Olympic Games. ”A lot depends on what the region is going to look like in four or five years,” said Prince Feisal. ”The situation at the moment would make any bid ludicrous, but I think the next bid for the World Cup is in three or four years. By then, hopefully things will have improved dramatically.”
Although the event has never been held in the Middle East, Iraq’s semi-final appearance in the Olympic football tournament was perceived as a unifying force. Prince Feisal spoke of ”the sense of Iraqi unity that occurred during the Olympic Games as they saw their team’s progress, whether they were from the north, south, central Sunnis, Shias or Kurds, they were all proud to be Iraqis”.
Hosting the World Cup may not be so far-fetched after all. Chile sought to host the 1962 competition despite having been devastated by an earthquake. While its rivals boasted that they already had everything in place, Chile said it should have the World Cup ”because we have nothing”. Chile won the vote. – Guardian Unlimited