FIFA World Cup Selection Team Continues Visit: United States Looking Good

As of  last check  over 1,007,987 soccer fans had cast their vote on the Bid City Leader board, at gousabid.com, this in an effort to help lure either World Cup 2018 or 2022 here to the United States.

Soccer fans in Houston, Texas, led the crusade with over 72,000 votes. Is your city in the Top 10?

If you would like to help the cause and have not yet voted, you can do so at www.gousabid.com 

Earlier this week, a FIFA inspection team led by Harold Mayne-Nicholls arrived in the United States to tour our facilities and attend events related to the U.S. bid. The delegation, which is expected to remain stateside until Sept. 10, will travel with members of the USA Bid Committee to five U.S. cities.

Currently the United States is one of nine countries bidding to host either the 2018 or 2022 World Cup, but at the moment most critics agree that England is probably the front- runner to entertain the 2018 World Cup.

Nonetheless, the USA bid committee forges on and has assembled a group of powerful board members to boot.  A board that includes the likes of former president Bill Clinton, who is also its honorary chairman; boxer Oscar De La Hoya; actor Brad Pitt; and Bob Iger, president and CEO of Disney.

The USA Bid Committee even launched an e-mail marketing push back on July 1 utilizing the new found star power of American soccer player Landon Donovan, who of course was not only captain of this summer’s USA World Cup team buy also its biggest star.

Yes, the bid committee is pulling out all the stops as representatives from 18 different U.S. cities showed up for a special party in New York earlier this week to welcome the FIFA World Cup inspection team.

Philadelphia Union Team President Tom Veit told me that he thinks Philadelphia would make for a great host World Cup City. “It’s a great soccer market," said Veit. “It has been for a hundred years, I think what the union has helped do is pop the cork and given Philly soccer fans a focus to show how passionate they are about the sport."

As you can see by the bid city leaderboard above, almost 50,000 Philadelphia-area soccer fans have cast their vote to bring the Cup to town and sometime over the next 80 days or so, we will find out just how much of an influence we have made on the FIFA Cup inspection team when they announce their selection for host countries for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

By the way, the United States got high reviews from FIFA when they last hosted the World Cup in 1994.