by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
Last week, officials from Jacksonville were in New York to meet with officials from U.S. Soccer. While the national goal is to host either the 2018 or 2022 men’s World Cup, Mayor John Peyton, Mike Bouda of the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission and others were in the Big Apple for selfish reasons — as in $300 million to $500 million worth of reasons.
Those are figures Bouda provides when asked about serving as a host city for the world’s biggest sporting event and the economic impact of having thousands of fans in town for about a month.
“People would save (money) for years to come here,” he said.
Next year’s World Cup is in South Africa and the U.S team has qualified. Four years later, Brazil will host the world. It’s the following two tournaments that have yet to be awarded by FIFA, the international governing body of soccer.
Peyton said the presentation went well.
“They (U.S. Soccer) started with a batch of 60 cities and we made the first cut to 40. Now, we are at 27 and they will get it to 18 spots, which will be revealed at the end of December,” said Peyton. “We have done well to-date and the number one attraction is the size of the stadium. We are still in the hunt. This would be big, bigger than Super Bowl. One in every six people in the world watches the World Cup. It’s a huge economic boost and tremendous international exposure. The fact we are still in the hunt speaks well of our city.”
Jurgen Buethe, spokesman for the U.S. Bid Committee, said FIFA will announce the host countries for both the 2018 and 2022 Cups Dec. 2 of next year. Last week, the Bid Committee met with representatives of each of the 27 cities. Buethe said the meetings went very well and the committee is impressed with each city for varying reasons.
“It was a great experience to have everyone here,” he said. “We heard great things from each city during the break out sessions. We really need to digest the information.”
Buethe said the U.S. Bid Committee will travel to Zurich, Switzerland March 14 to make its case for the United States. They’ll take with them a 1,500-page bid proposal and another 50,000 pages on signed contracts.
“We have set an internal deadline of late December or early January to come up with a list of 18 cities,” he said, adding the delegations from each city were very well-prepared. “It was really enlightening and now the work falls on our shoulders.”
If Jacksonville is named a host city, Bouda said 6-8 matches will be played here. Considering each team will bring about 20,000 fans with it, there will be 40,000 fans from the teams in the stands alone. The rest will come from all over the Southeast United States.
“Within an eight-hour drive there are 45 million people,” said Bouda, adding he thinks the meetings went well, also. “The feedback was very positive and we didn’t run up against any major obstacles.”
Who’s still in the hunt?
There are 27 cities still in consideration to host World Cup matches if the United States is awarded either the 2018 or 2022 World Cup. Some cities have more than one venue.
Atlanta
Baltimore
Boston
Charlotte
Chicago
Cleveland
Dallas
Denver
Detroit
Houston
Indianapolis
Jacksonville
Kansas City
Los Angeles
Miami
Nashville
New York/New Jersey
Oakland
Orlando
Philadelphia
Phoenix/Glendale
San Diego
San Francisco
Seattle
St. Louis
Tampa
Washington, D.C.
356-2466