Ireland to bid for the World Cup in 2018?

[Colbert Report]

The only way this could happen is if the English FA were willing to spread out the stadia in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland in exchange for support of their bid. I honestly believe that in the next fifty years we'll see a Euro finals match played in Dublin.

[endabob1]

There are dozens of reasons that this won't work but the main ones are pretty straightforward.
1 - The British govt has already said it will back Englands bid therefore the chances of Scotland or the Scottish FA getting backing/funding from the govt is virtually Zero
2 - There isn't enough grounds, Scotland has 4 (in 2 cities) Ireland will have 1. Croke Park is still a GAA stadium and there are no guarantees that the current temporary lifting of the ban will be repeated for a foreign sports championship which would raise the profile of one of the GAA's main competitors to unprecedented levels. South Africa has 10 spread over 9 cities. Germany had 12 in 12 cities
And finally the most compelling reason that it won't happen
3 - The FAI are involved.

[Claret Murph]

Hummmmmm let me see if say that 47 games will be played in Croke park and we hope to have the final in Lansdowne and that's only if they get it finished in time by 2018 ...

So I am talking poo ....Yes as we have no hope of feilding the world cup

[beautifulrock]

Not a hope, more silly bogball references from the usual fools. As was said earlier lets just qualify. England will host 2018, Stadia are already in place bar the new Liverpool FC one.

[EalingGreen]

STOP PRESS:

Craggy Island has just offered to stage the 2014 Winter Olympics, on condition that it can be in July or August. (Apparently it's too friggin' cold the rest of the year...)

[elroy]

This is just ridiculous beyond belief.

Step one would be for LR to hopefully get a UEFA Cup final and that event to go well, then maybe we could consider submitting another joint bid with Scotland from the Euros. We would need help from both the IRFU and the GAA (which may not be so forthcoming in June) to use the redeveloped Thomond Park and Croker. Then we would have three decent stadia for submission along with a Scotish bid, there may be a decent chance of us geting the Euros then.

[endabob1]

Do we not think it would be a better exercise to start with the U21 Euros (8 teams max 20 games) which would require 4 grounds 1 big one (lansdowne) 1 medium (Thomond) and 2 smaller grounds of about 10k capacity which would at least be able to be used for LOI football in the future.

[citizenerased]

laughable to even mention this...you need about 8 top stadiums, not economicable viable..we will worry about gettin one first

[ifk101]

Do we not think it would be a better exercise to start with the U21 Euros (8 teams max 20 games) which would require 4 grounds 1 big one (lansdowne) 1 medium (Thomond) and 2 smaller grounds of about 10k capacity which would at least be able to be used for LOI football in the future.

I understand that the FAI and IFA are making a bid for the U21 Euros.

[EalingGreen]

This is just ridiculous beyond belief.

Step one would be for LR to hopefully get a UEFA Cup final and that event to go well, then maybe we could consider submitting another joint bid with Scotland from the Euros. We would need help from both the IRFU and the GAA (which may not be so forthcoming in June) to use the redeveloped Thomond Park and Croker. Then we would have three decent stadia for submission along with a Scotish bid, there may be a decent chance of us geting the Euros then.

Tbh, whilst I'd love to see the Euros held close to home, I can't see a joint SFA/FAI bid being successful, especially if the tournament is increased to 24 teams, since even combined, the two countries simply don't have enough large cities, nor the transport infrastructure (exacerbated by being separated by the Irish Sea):

"Hosting requirements and their impact on the pool of candidate hosts
In the current 16-team format, and because of the requirement that both final matches of a qualifying group be played at the same time, the practical minimum number of stadia is eight. At least one stadium must have UEFA 5-star rating to host the final, and all others must have 4-star rating or more. Also, concentrating more than two stadia in a single host city is likely to put severe strain on that city's transportation and lodging infrastructure. This means that host stadia must be located in at least four different cities—generally six to eight in practice, as few cities outside the capitals of most European countries have enough resident sports teams with attendances high enough to justify the existence of two large stadia. As a consequence, transport between venues for the teams and the large numbers of visiting fans is of crucial importance and often requires significant investment to improve road, rail, and air networks.

These demanding requirements make it increasingly difficult for small- and medium-sized countries to host a European Championship alone. The population of Portugal, at just over 10 million, may represent the threshold below which a country cannot bid by itself. Though Portugal staged a successful championship in 2004, it is unclear whether its investment will pay off. Some of the stadia built for the occasion are rarely, if ever, full during domestic league or cup matches.

Joint hosting, as done in 2000 and 2008, can offer a solution to this problem. Since the 1990s, countries have been allowed to act as joint hosts. Belgium and the Netherlands were the first countries to co-host the competition in 2000. In the 2008 tournament Austria and Switzerland will co-host the event, held from June 7 - June 29, 2008. UEFA has unofficially set the maximum number of co-hosts at two by turning down a so-called "Nordic bid" of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden to jointly host the 2008 championships. With two co-hosts, each organizing country needs only provide good transportation between three or four host cities and build or renovate four stadia, with a better chance of a positive return on investment. A large number of nations with populations around five million, such as Scotland or Croatia, now have an opportunity to become hosts. An element of sporting fairness is also present, as co-hosting gives smaller countries with good national teams (such as the Czech Republic) the same opportunity as their football equals with larger populations (such as Spain) to earn a championship berth without having to qualify.

With the proposed expansion of the championship to 24 teams, the requirements become even more stringent. The experience of past 24-team World Cups (1982 to 1994) shows that nine to 12 stadia are necessary to host such a competition, 12 being the ideal number. In practice, eight to 12 cities are now involved, which magnifies transportation and lodging issues.

If UEFA maintains its unofficial limit of two co-hosts, the minimum country size to mount a bid will therefore increase and will probably lie between five and 10 million. It is also possible that UEFA would become open to joint bids by three countries, which would keep the requirements unchanged for each co-host and enable the same pool of nations to bid as in the 16-team format. Qualifying would, however, become marginally more difficult for non-hosts: 21 berths would remain open to 48 teams (i.e., a 43.8% selection rate), versus 22 berths for 49 teams (a 44.9% rate) for a two-host championship."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Eu...l_Championship

[Sligo Hornet]

This Thread should be binned, or at least moved to a more appropriate location i.e. "Off Topic JOKES"!!

[ruben_sosa]

nevermind the stadiums. Ireland would require an entirely new transport infrastructure in each host city, a new airport terminal, thousands of extra cops, a new power station, and dozens of new hotels to deal with hundreds of thousands of people who would come here during a World Cup.

...or add a few extra dart carriages, that'll suffice.

[eirebhoy]

The only way this could happen is if the English FA were willing to spread out the stadia in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland in exchange for support of their bid. I honestly believe that in the next fifty years we'll see a Euro finals match played in Dublin.

It would mean though that these 4 or 5 countries will qualify automatically for the tournament which is a bit much.

[DaveyCakes]

In all the talk of World Cup and Euro bid, no one ever mentions that such a tournament would be held in the middle of the GAA championship season. Do we really expect the GAA to hand over Croker for a month?

[KianD]

Friend of mine attempted to justify this with the idea that it'd be a north/south bid, taking in to account the fact that you'd never get away with more than two stadia a "city":

1: Croker
2: Lansdowne
3: Thomond (after another refit)
4: Musgrave (make its upcoming refit significantly larger)
5: Pairc Ui Caoimh (GAA are making it 50k allseater apparently)
6: Semple (also being re-fiited to have more than 40k seats + terracing I believe)
7: Long Kesh
8: Either Ravenhill or Windsor redone - but I think neither site is capable of it.

But, theres still major problems with that, namely its still short two stadia, and the GAA would never let you have three of their stadia at that time of the year - if at all.

[carloz]

Also im fairly sure that to host a world cup only one city can have two stadia's. Obviously Dublin would have 2 so that means no other city can have. This would really effect Scotland if they were to bid with us. Our last bid for the European Championships was laughable. I feel the 2018 world cup will go to Australia. All the stadiums already there, have hosted a rugby world cup, and the game is really developing there

[pete]

Pathetic waste of time & resources. If we can't host the European Championship then no hope of thew World Cup. You would need at least 10 stadiums & absolute minimum capacity is 30,000. Ireland could provide maybe 1 large & 2 small stadiums. The GAA would rather burn Croke Park to the ground than let the FAI use for the World Cup. If Ireland were serious they would host under age European Tournaments building up to the U21s & show Uefa they can organise & get big crowds before applying for the European Championship which is more realistic if they actually put effort into it.

[Wolfie]

So what do you think? Is it a possibility?

http://www.eleven-a-side.com/offthef...p?newsid=29832

Preposterous. Not a hope in light of our current infrastructure and lack of stadia.

England would have a far more realistic chance of securing it.

[Kingdom]

Also im fairly sure that to host a world cup only one city can have two stadia's. Obviously Dublin would have 2 so that means no other city can have. This would really effect Scotland if they were to bid with us. Our last bid for the European Championships was laughable. I feel the 2018 world cup will go to Australia. All the stadiums already there, have hosted a rugby world cup, and the game is really developing there

Obviously we'd all love to host the Euro's or the WC but it is not realistic to be fair. If there was universal agreement amongst the various sporting organisations we definitely would have the stadiums to fill that part of the criteria even going on the 1 stadium per city, however the infrastructure is never likely to be good enough so its probably pie in the sky.

As for all the clamour over England going for the World Cup, I agree with Carloz there in that Australia should be a front runner for the 2018 championships. England has had it before, and if a new applicant has the facilities they should take priority. China too, if the Olympics is a success are mooted to be preparing a bid. I'd prefer to see it go to either of those places ahead of England.

[Torn-Ado]

Anyone remember when the result of the 2008 UEFA bid was live on telly and the tw*ts on sky news said that the Scotland and Ireland bid was down to the last two when in fact we were one of the first to be eliminated.

Sky f*ckin news.