Source: Daily_Mail
England set for World Cup inspection as race to host 2018 finals hots up
England's World Cup bid leaders will begin inspection visits next week to those cities hoping to be part of the campaign for the 2018 or 2022 tournament.
Some 15 cities, containing up to 22 stadia, have registered their interest ahead of tomorrow's deadline saying they want to be part of the bid. These will be whittled down to between 12 and 18 arenas at the end of the year.
Two inspection teams from the England World Cup bid will visit all the city groups over the next two months, starting at Bristol on Monday and finishing with Newcastle on September 10. Each city will have two inspection trips.
Some venues are obvious - Wembley Stadium will be the venue for the final, while it would be inconceivable were Old Trafford not included on the list. In London, as well as Wembley the other recommended venues being put forward are Arsenal's Emirates stadium, Tottenham's to-be-redeveloped White Hart Lane, and the Olympic Stadium in east London.
The city's mayor Boris Johnson is keen for the Olympic Stadium to be used by football after the Games, and London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe has also called for it to be considered.
Coe, who is also a director of the 2018 bid, said last month: 'We seem to be about the only country in the world that seems to think it's absolutely impossible under any circumstances to play football inside a running track.
'That overlooks the fact that the last three Champions League finals have been played in those sorts of stadiums, not to mention the last World Cup final in Berlin where the World Athletics Championships will be in August.
'I see no reason why the Olympic Stadium should not be used and the evaluation team at the FA are working on this now and will be looking at this.'
Even if the Olympic Stadium is not chosen as a match host, it could still be put forward as a training venue where its reduced 25,000-capacity would be ideal for countries such as Brazil who attract huge crowds to practice sessions.
All the stadia must have a minimum capacity of 40,000 so for cities such as Bristol, Milton Keynes, Hull and Portsmouth they would have to expand their current grounds or use the tournament as an opportunity to build a new one.
MK Dons chairman Pete Winkelman said: 'The FIFA World Cup finals are the absolute pinnacle of football and the prospect of Milton Keynes playing host to an event of such magnitude is about as exciting as it gets.'
The 15 city groups who have registered their interest are: Birmingham, Bristol, Derby, Hull, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Newcastle/Gateshead, Nottingham, Portsmouth, Sheffield, Sunderland.
