A question regarding World Cup assignation?

[AwesomeBill3027]

Has there ever been discussion among the powers-that-be to assign the hosting of the World Cup to the country that won the previous tournament?

For example, say Italy gets to host 2010 and that tourney champion hosts 2014.

What are the pro's and con's?

[us_fulham_fan3838]

Pro's - Rewards a nation for winning the cup
Con's - The tourney would probably never be played in Africa or Asia or even possibly North America.

[Sasan7234]

Pros - A reward that will lead Italy to win another world cup in their own country

Cons - Asian and African teams pretty much don't have a chance of winning it.

[JeffW]

Three obvious problems. First, it takes more than 4 years to get a country ready for the World Cup. It's why they announce it so many years in advance (like the Olympics, only on a slightly smaller scale). You could theoretically fix this by giving the winner the hosting position 8 years hence rather than four.

Second problem: The winner might not have the capability of hosting the Tournament. You need a certain number of stadiums above a certain capacity - not many countries have that.

Third problem: They like to rotate the continents so that more areas of the world become exposed to the world cup. With Europe & South America winning all the time, you would sort of leave Africa, Asia and North America out in the cold.

[mf52dolphin]

I would doubt it. It would likely not produce as much money as the current format.

As for a pro I do not really see any.

As for cons I see many disadvantages. The 1st is that home teams have won 6 times(Uraguay 1930, Italy 1934, England 1966, Germany 1974, Argentina 1978, France 1998), which might lead to some sort of unfair advantage. The 2nd is the lack of incentive for building new stadiums. The 3rd is the lack of condition changes.

Also FIFA in the last decade took away the main benefit for a title winner by no longer giving the World Cup winner an automatic spot in the next tournament.

[Sicula1479]

Pro - England will never host ;-)
Con - Winners may not be able to afford to host a cup...