Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Local and Regional Sites Contacted by USSF about World Cup bid

Arrowhead Stadium and other stadium sites around the Kansas City region have been named on the short list of 70 sites that were contacted by the US Soccer Federation about the USA's upcoming bids for the 2018 and the 2022 World Cup. Included with Arrowhead was Faurot Field in Columbia, MO, the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, IA, and Memorial Stadium in Lincoln. The letter that each of the sites received outlines the USA's bid along with the criteria for venue selection. Arrowhead was on the short list back in 1994 to try and host some of the games, but that did not happen. Sadly I don't see any of the 5 sites I named above being selected to host a World Cup game should the US get the bid. All the stadiums would need changes made to increase the field size so that a FIFA sized field could fit in the stadium. If I remember correctly, back in 1994, they were going to bring in a platform at Arrowhead that would actually have covered a few rows of seats to make the field wide enough for the World Cup. I don't see them doing that this time. Officials for the cities and venues have until April 17th to respond to the USSF with their interest.

1 comment:

Sam said...

Sadly, I tend to agree. Had the Arrowhead renovations included taking out enough seats to put a field in, we'd be in with a shout, but there's no way now. A bunch of those new stadia were built with this in mind...the new Cowboys palace, U of Phoenix in Glendale, Reliant in Houston, etc.