2018 World Cup: Skippy urged to skip it

"Australia is also in the southern hemisphere - if I'm not wrong" Blatter said at the close of the FIFA Congress in Sydney. "It is a logical approach that the World Cup 2018 competition would go back to the (northern) continent)."

   But the world football supreme also endorsed the "fundamental right of every national association to bid for the right to host a FIFA competition."

   Blatter listed the contenders for 2018 - Mexico, the United States, England, Spain, Russia, a joint Dutch-Belgian bid as well as China, Australia, Japan and Qatar - and argued that bids should be placed for both 2018 and 2022 with the decision made on both by June 2011.

 "There are so many contenders," Blatter said. "When the bidding opens, everybody should bid for both."

   Blatter said an idea doing the rounds in Europe would be for the Europeans to get together and fix on one candidate for 2018.

 "They want to make sure there will be only one candidate in order to maintain their best chance," he said. "I have also heard that in the AFC (Asian Football Confederation) they would do the same."

DPA