Japan will pass on bidding for the Club World Cup in 2013 and 2014 to give itself a better chance of hosting the Women's World Cup and other major tournaments, according to its football chief.
The 2011 Club World Cup is currently under way in Japan, which also hosted the event from 2005, when it was first organised in its current form, to 2008.
It came back to Japan after the 2009 and 2010 editions were staged in the United Arab Emirates. Japan is due to host it again next year.
Japan Football Association president Junji Ogura told Japanese media: "If we do it every time, it becomes difficult to host other competitions."
"If we want the likes of the Under-20 World Cup and the Women's World Cup to come to Japan, it's probably not in our best interests to host (the Club World Cup) every year," he added, according to Kyodo news agency.
Japan won the Women's World Cup in Germany last July, lifting the country's mood after a massive earthquake and tsunami devastated its northeast and sparked a major nuclear crisis in March.
Ogura was speaking after a meeting of the Club World Cup organising committee in Nagoya on Wednesday. He said his association had withdrawn from the list of candidates for the 2013 and 2014 tournaments.
He also said some of next year's Club World Cup matches might be held in Miyagi, one of the regions ravaged by the quake-tsunami disaster.
"It will help grow regional football," he said.
A football stadium in Miyagi has been repaired with financial help from football's world governing body FIFA.
From 1980 to 2004, Japan hosted a single-match clash between the European and South American club champions, known as the Intercontinental Cup and considered a de facto world club championship.
Separately, a world club championship was held in Brazil in 2000 bringing together continental champions.
The two events were merged into the Club World Cup in 2005.
Source: AFP
