Interest high in World Cup bid

A delegation of World Cup bid leaders will take in 15 cities over the next few weeks as they begin inspection visits to potential locations and venues to be part of the campaign for the 2018 or 2022 Finals.

The deadline for registering interest in being a possible World Cup venue passes today and there has been a great deal of interest with up to 22 possible stadiums hoping to be inspected.

There will be two separate inspection teams from the England World Cup bid and they will visit all the locations in the coming months. Each venue will have two inspections before a final shortlist is drawn up by the end of the year.

Wembley Stadium will be the venue for the final, whilst stadia such as Old Trafford and the Emirates Stadium are likely to be included.

Even if a stadium is not chosen for hosting matches, they can still be put forward as a training venue to host countries such as Brazil who can attract sizeable crowds to training sessions.

All of the match hosting stadiums must have a capacity of at least 40,000, so some of the stadiums involved would need to expand or build a new venue for the tournament.

The 15 city groups who have put themselves forward for inspection are: Birmingham, Bristol, Derby, Hull, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Newcastle/Gateshead, Nottingham, Portsmouth, Sheffield and Sunderland.