2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup Bids - 2018 Bids

2018 Bids

Eleven bids were submitted in March 2009 covering thirteen nations, with two joint bids: Belgium-Netherlands and Portugal-Spain. Mexico also submitted a bid, but withdrew theirs on 28 September 2009, while Indonesia had their bid rejected for lack of government support on 19 March 2010. Five of the remaining nine bids, South Korea, Qatar, Japan, Australia and United States were only for the 2022 World Cup, while all the others bid for both the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. However, since all of the bids for the 2018 World Cup were from European nations, and FIFA's rules dictate that countries belonging to confederations that hosted either of the two preceding tournaments are not eligible to host, all of these bids were forced to be for 2018 only. Four bids came from the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), four from Europe's UEFA, and one from CONCACAF. It had also been reported on the FIFA website that Egypt was entering a bid, but the president of the Egyptian Football Association denied that any more than an inquiry in principle had been made. The number of bids received meant that the 2018 World Cup was the most contested bid in FIFA's history.