Football: 2026 World Cup to be decided in 2017
Mar 23, 2015
FIFA said Friday it will start looking for bids this year for the 2026 World Cup finals before making a final decision at a congress in Kuala Lumpur in 2017.
ZURICH - FIFA said Friday it will start looking for bids this year for the 2026 World Cup finals before making a final decision at a congress in Kuala Lumpur in 2017.
FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke said that new World Cup bidding rules would be agreed this year.
Calls for change have mounted after allegations of corruption and other controversies surrounding Russia's bid for the 2018 World Cup and Qatar's campaign for the 2022 tournament. Both countries deny any wrongdoing.
Valcke said an extra day would be added to a planned FIFA Congress in May 2017 to decide the hosts.
The campaign "will be transparent from the first minute of the process," Valcke said.
So far no country has publicly announced its candidacy. US federation chief Sunil Gulati said last year that the United States could be a candidate, but only if the bidding rules are changed.
Gulati, a member of the FIFA executive, tweeted after Friday's announcement that the decision would be taken in 2017.
The United States, which held the World Cup in 1994, was one of the losing candidates when Qatar was chosen for 2022 in a controversial FIFA executive committee vote in 2010.
Mexican football chiefs said in 2013 that they would be interested in co-hosting the 2026 tournament with the United States.
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