The Football Association (FA) is carrying out a study into the feasibility of hosting the 2030 World Cup finals in England, association chairman Greg Clarke said in a statement on Wednesday.
England, which hosted the World Cup in 1966, failed in its most recent attempt to win the rights for this year’s tournament.
“Last month, the English FA board agreed to conduct feasibility work into the possibility of putting itself forward to be UEFA’s potential candidate to host the 2030 FIFA World Cup,” Clarke said. “This work will take place during the new season and no decision will be made until 2019.”
A South American tri-nation bid involving Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay has already been announced for 2030.
South American officials have said they are expecting a bid from England, possibly in alliance with the other parts of the UK.
While the FA has not directly addressed the possibility of a joint bid, it is likely that its study is to look into the potential benefits of such an approach, given that the World Cup is to expand to 48 teams in 2026.
FIFA’s congress in June voted for a joint bid from the US, Canada and Mexico to host the 2026 Cup.
Following that decision, FA’s FIFA representative David Gill said the cleaner bidding process opened up the possibility of a new England bid.
Clarke dismissed the suggestion from former FA chairman David Triesman that England could step in to host the 2022 tournament if it was taken away from Qatar.
“FIFA has chosen Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup and they have a duty to investigate any issues around the process that are rightly thrown into question,” Clarke said. “Russia did a brilliant job hosting the 2018 World Cup and we support the rotation of World Cup hosting among the confederations.”
“That would make the 2030 World Cup the next one a European nation might be able to host and not before. Anyone suggesting otherwise is acting disrespectfully to our global game and does not speak for the English FA,” Clarke added.
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