[Phobia27]

Here are the chosen candidates -

- Birmingham (Villa Park)
- Bristol (New Ashton Gate)
- Leeds (Elland Road)
- Liverpool (Anfield/New Anfield)
- London (Wembley, Emirates, Olympic Stadium/New Tottenham Stadium)
- Manchester (Old Trafford, City of Manchester stadium)
- Milton Keynes (Stadium:MK)
- Newcastle-Gateshead (Sportsdirect.com@St.James' Park stadium )
- Nottingham (New Forest Ground)
- Plymouth (Home Park)
- Sheffield (Hillsborough)
- Sunderland (Stadium of Light)


REJECTED
- Derby
- Leicester
- Hull
- BRAMALL LANE - Sheffield

[hunty91]

Plymouth? MK? Hull? Derby?

WHAT?! WHY?!

[butchered_wyer]

I would take the below, I really want Sheffield and Nottingham to be chosen, as I am at uni in Sheff but come from Notts

London
Manchester
Liverpool
Birmingham
Newcastle-Gateshead
Leeds
Sheffield
Nottingham
Bristol
Hull

[EssexDan86]

Leeds, of course!

As much as I dislike Elland Road, it almost has the capacity already, and is set to get an expansion in time for 2018. As the biggest city in Yorkshire we definitely have or will have all the necessary transport and tourism infrastructure in place, in addition to some of the best nightlife and shopping in the north!

http://www.backthebidleeds.com/

I think it's perfectly feasible both Leeds and Sheffield could get host city status. Other than that you're probably looking at:

Wembley
Emirates
Old Trafford
St James' Park
Anfield
Villa Park
and then the rest is up in the air!

[Jangrafess]

Let's be fair, it's not an unbiased opinion. Preston could make similar claims about having an old football club, it all depends on your definition, but that's not an argument for having World Cup football at Deepdale. Manchester, London, Newcastle, Birmingham, Liverpool, Sunderland are probably the shoe-ins. Wembley, Anfield, Old Trafford, CoM, Villa Park, (sportsdirect.com@)St. James's Park, Stadium of Light being definites IMO, then possibly the Emirates as well. That only leaves three stadia. I agree that Sheffield would be a good place to have football though, and my opinion on that can be called unbiased! Leeds wouldn't be so bad. Oh, and then Griffin Park of course. West London massif.

[EssexDan86]

(Original post by Jangrafess)
Let's be fair, it's not an unbiased opinion. Preston could make similar claims about having an old football club, it all depends on your definition, but that's not an argument for having World Cup football at Deepdale. Manchester, London, Newcastle, Birmingham, Liverpool, Sunderland are probably the shoe-ins. Wembley, Anfield, Old Trafford, CoM, Villa Park, (sportsdirect.com@)St. James's Park, Stadium of Light being definites IMO, then possibly the Emirates as well. That only leaves three stadia. I agree that Sheffield would be a good place to have football though, and my opinion on that can be called unbiased! Leeds wouldn't be so bad. Oh, and then Griffin Park of course. West London massif.

Hmm, wouldn't be so sure of anywhere outside of London getting 2 stadia. Think it'd be Old Trafford that'd win through there!

[Stokie]

Nice to see stoke on trent council is representing this really undeprived area. Maybe we should stick with hosting the Ghanian national swimming team ey.

[Jangrafess]

(Original post by EssexDan86)
Hmm, wouldn't be so sure of anywhere outside of London getting 2 stadia. Think it'd be Old Trafford that'd win through there!

I dunno, they're both very large stadia that are already ready to host big games. Transport here will be good enough by then, and Manchester's a very accessible city indeed. Enough accommodation for lots of people, and I definitely wouldn't be surprised. London may be a bigger city, but it really only has Wembley and the Emirates, and cities like Nottingham, Hull, etc, are going to need to develop a lot very quickly to have a good enough stadium, potentially freeing up Manchester to have two.

[Joseph90]

Derby.

It's the fastest growing city in this country and has a population of people who love football.

Derby County's attendance records speak for themselves.

A city of 300,000 people with a club attracting 30,000 fans is immense on average.

I expect bigger cities to beat us because they're more well-known but I hope the people in charge at least consider Derby.

It is the most central city in the United Kingdom and the transport linking it to other places (1 hr 30 mins from London on the train) is certainly suitable.

The world cup would suit the city brilliantly. It would welcome fans from everywhere and be a great place for a party atmosphere. The pubs and bars here are quite but are fun and there are many parks and open squares for fans to gather.

We may require a bit of expansion but that situation is being sorted as we speak and Pride Park is well on the way to becoming a 45,000 capacity stadium.

[timmo541]

It would be pretty stupid if Leeds doesn't get it - home to one of the most famous disaster stories of English football, and 4th(?) largest city in the UK based on population. It has good rail links with the rest of England, and also, the government are trying to make it 'the capital of the north'.

[Joseph90]

(Original post by timmo541)
It would be pretty stupid if Leeds doesn't get it - home to one of the most famous disaster stories of English football, and 4th(?) largest city in the UK based on population. It has good rail links with the rest of England, and also, the government are trying to make it 'the capital of the north'.

I agree with that. Leeds should be a host city as well.

Yorkshire definitely needs to be represented, as does the East Midlands.

[Phobia27]

(Original post by Jangrafess)
Let's be fair, it's not an unbiased opinion.

I was being sarcastic, course it's biased Just bigging up my hometown

I think these five are pretty much guaranteed -

London
Manchester
Liverpool
Birmingham
Newcastle-Gateshead

Then the other places, well it depends how many they do choose. It could be as few as 8 or as many as 11. But we should expect about 10.

Definitely gonna be a couple of upsets, though if Hull, Milton Keynes, or Plymouth are one of the cities, I've lost all faith in the 2018 bid.

[TheRealDarthVader]

I can't understand how Portsmouth's bid could have been taken seriously. It is the most densely populated city in the country, so no one can move. It only has two roads going into the city, so traffic will be huge. The stadium is hard to get to because of how compact it is around there. Not to mention Fratton Park is dirty, small, and falling apart. There is a drug problem, and it has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Western Europe.

[Stu Laverty]

London, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Newcastle are definites, I agree. Leeds, Sheffield and Sunderland should be there too. I think the bottom four should be ruled out though.

In terms of quality of stadium and city, the five at the top have to be there.

[Chloe-Marie]

Leeds, because I'm at Leeds Uni.
Sheffield, because I just love the city & the uni.
Liverpool, because I support Liverpool F.C.

Not that they are very good reasons but hey!

Why some of those cities are on there.. e.g. MK I will never know..

[ozzyoscy]

- London
- Manchester
- Liverpool
- Birmingham
- Newcastle-Gateshead
- Sheffield
- Sunderland
- Leeds

Job done, what's next?

Oh, transport...erm...we'll come back to that.

[impsmith]

I'd love Leicester to have a go
-it's right in the middle of England
-on the M1 linking to the M6
-direct route to St Pancras (and by extension Paris and the rest of Europe) plus easy links with Stansted and Luton airports plus Leeds, York, Sheffield and Birmingham.
-East Midlands airport nearby (which can take inter-continental flights)
-incredibly ethnically diverse pretty much without problems: the biggest Diwali celebrations outside India are in Leicester and it has the second-biggest Caribbean carnival in the UK. It's a happily multi-faith multi-nationality city, which would be ideal both to show off to the rest of the world and to host a load of foreign football fans.
-one of the biggest cities in the UK therefore won't have much of a problem hosting everybody and providing them with things to do.
-a modern 32500 seat stadium (which will be expanded to 50000 if it's chosen as a host city) which has hosted both England and Brazil in the last few years, plus South Africa in rugby union

I can't really think of a reason why Leicester wouldn't be a good host city.

[Kevmeister]

Artist's drawing of Nottingham's stadium:

[Rock Fan]

They will surely pick Villa Park over St.Andrews

[Kevmeister]

(Original post by Rock Fan)
They will surely pick Villa Park over St.Andrews

St. Andrews isn't in the mix, it's a new stadium, City of Birmingham Stadium.... very original.