Stars, bikes and origami back new World Cup bids

England star David Beckham, Dutch and Belgian footballing greats on bicycles, and a Japanese bid combining electronics with an origami popout opened the bidding to host the World Cup in 2018 or 2022 on Friday.

Australian football chief Frank Lowy kicked off FIFA’s official ceremonies for the handover of detailed bidding books by the candidates, as South Korea, Qatar, Russia, Spain and Portugal, as well as the United States followed at the world governing body’s headquarters.

Under the slogan “208 smiles”, an origami popout unfolded from Japan’s bid book also revealing a PDA device, as the nine bidders generally handed FIFA president Sepp Blatter straightforward thick volumes.

Beckham repeatedly highlighted English “passion for the game” as he delivered England’s thick, three-volume bid book.

“This is something that runs throughout our country, our veins, it’s something that we we’re brought up with,” Beckham added, accompanied by Football Association (FA) chiefs.

Qatari heir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani told journalists that the Gulf emirate was ready to spend four billion dollars on stadiums for the event in 2022.

The bidding documents, which haven’t been published, outline technical details relating to stadia, transport, accommodation and financial planning for the event.

The handover marked a step towards intense lobbying of the other 195 FIFA footballing nations, including those on the decision-making executive committee, in the run up the World Cup next month.

The president of the joint Holland/Belgium bid, former Dutch player and manager Ruud Gullit, told journalists: “This is just the beginning, we still have to lobby.”

FIFA announced that its key assessment visits to each country by a three-man inspection team led by Chilean football association chief Harold Mayne Nicholls would take place between July and September.

Blatter also cleared the way for joint hosts — such as the Netherlands and Belgium as well as Spain and Portugal — which had been frowned upon since the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea.

Sheikh Tamim said the hopes of 400 million people in the Middle East and North Africa were riding on Qatar’s bid, the first ever from the region.

“We ask that in the same way as you are kicking down the door for Africa, you allow us (in). We only ask that you grace us with reading our book,” he told Blatter.

FIFA’s chief has suggested that Qatar had a good chance to become the first World Cup hosts from the Arab world.

Holland and Belgium added an original twist to star power, as their bidding committee led by Gullit, Dutch legend Johann Cruyff and Belgian football great Paul van Himst cycled into the lobby of FIFA headquarters to unveil an environmentally-friendly bid.

“We will try to give two million bikes to all the fans, so they can go everywhere,” explained Gullit.

Spanish secretary of state for sports Jaime Lissavetsky Diez played down the impact of the current European debt crisis on Spain and Portugal’s bid.

“The economy of 2018 will be very different, I believe very much in Europe and we can improve the situation,” he told journalists.

Russian officials suggested that they could cluster the event mainly on the western side of the country and would build ten new stadiums.

“This is a book that not only meets FIFA’s standards, this is a book for Russia’s future,” said Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, promising a “modernised Russia” by 2018.

But a key issue could be a distribution of the event between Europe in 2018 and in FIFA’s Asian region, including the Middle East, in 2022, as bidders from different regions trade off support for each other.

Japan, South Korea and Qatar clearly earmarked their bids for 2022, leaving Australia as the only Asia region member not to exclude 2018.

USA bid committee chairman Sunil Gulati said the US already had the infrastructure to host the event in 2018 or 2022 and rejected claims that football was not big enough in the United States.

“We average 16,000 people (a game) and the J-League is at 17,000,” he told AFP, claiming the US was in “the top five.”

The final choice will be down to FIFA’s 24-strong ruling executive committee, which will vote for the host countries of both editions on December 2.