FIFA Awards World Cup Tournaments

FIFA, the governing body of soccer, announced Tuesday the countries to host the 2011 Women's World Cup and the 2014 Men's World Cup.

The 2011 Women's FIFA World Cup will be held in Germany. The 2014 FIFA World Cup tournament for the Men's side will be held in Brazil.

The German Football president, Theo Zwanziger, accepted the nod expressing confidence in the associations' ability to set forth a games tournament based on "fair play" values and stated the decision would give a "massive boost" for women's soccer. Canada was the runner up. Germany held the most recent Men's FIFAWorld Cup in 2006 and are the current Women's World Cup champions.

The announcement on the 2014 Men's FIFA World Cup was less suspenseful, but equally dramatic for the soccer crazed nation. FIFA maintains a system of awarding the tournament on a continent-by-continent basis and Brazil was the only South American country in the bidding for the tourney after Columbia withdrew it's application earlier this year. Argentina had expressed interest in candidating for the World Cup, but never bid on the event.

For it's part, FIFA acknowledged the difficulty of choosing from only one bidder, stating that they had held to their standards and perhaps had exceeded many of them when assessing the Brazilian bid for the games. The President of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, spoke to the responsibility and to the enormity of the task of preparing for the games.

Officials of both FIFA and Brazilian soccer angrily defended the nation amid questions of violence and security. Brazil has won the FIFA World Cup 5 times, but has not hosted the event since 1950 - a span of what will be 64 years.

While this is the first time since 1966 FIFA has awarded the World Cup to the sole bidder, the organization announced on Monday that it had voted to no longer subscribe to the continental rotation basis beginning with the 2018 games. To maintain competition, FIFA will propose to the FIFA Congress a bylaw restricting the hosts of the previous two World Cups from bidding on the next subsequent tournament. The 2010 FIFA World Cup will be held in South Africa. The FIFA Congress next meets in 2008.

In other, related news, FIFA has suspended the Kuwait Football Association due to undue government influence and has warned the Iran, Peru, and the Central African Republic they too face suspension.

SOURCES:

FIFA.com, URL: http://fifa.com/aboutfifa/federation/
news/newsid=625447.html#brazil+germany+host+events

FIFA, URL: http://fifa.com/aboutfifa/federation/administration/
releases/newsid=625122.html#rotation+ends+2018

Guardian Newspaper, URL: http://football.guardian.co.uk/
breakingnews/feedstory/0,,-7035927,00.html

Guardian Newspaper, URL: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/
main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2007/10/30/ufnbrazil130.xml