World Cup 2018 and 2022 bid analysis

Soccer week continues here at quellipsis, today we’re going to look at the bids for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.  I know it seems like a long way off, but the 2018 and 2022 World Cups will be upon us before we know it.  An interesting contingent of countries has submitted bids for the future World Cups, and we are going to take a look at all the possible hosts.  Instead of just listing off the countries bidding for each tournament and a little information about their bid, we’re also going to try something a little different and look at the logos each country has created to promote their bid, and ultimately make a prediction on who is going to get the bid based on…their bid logo.  For each country I’m going to assign a grade for the quality of the bid, the logo, and then average those two grades to arrive at a final grade.

There have been ten bids submitted to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, seven bids for both tournaments and three bids for just the 2022 tournament.  The seven groups bidding for both World Cups are: Australia, Belgium & Netherlands (in a group bid), England, Japan, Russia, Spain & Portugal (as a group), and the USA.  The three countries vying only for 2022 are Indonesia, South Korea, and Qatar.

First a little discussion about how the World Cup rotates between continents.  Within the past few years FIFA has instituted a policy that the continents hosting the previous two tournaments would be ineligible for the next World Cup.  Since 2010 is in Africa, and 2014 is in South America, neither of these continents will be eligible for the 2018 World Cup.  It has also been an informal tradition that every other World Cup takes place in Europe, in fact the 2010 and 2014 World Cups are the first to break this trend.  This is strong evidence pointing to a 2018 World Cup in Europe, although technically North America, Asia, and Oceania are also eligible (World Cup “continents” only roughly correspond with the actual continents).  If a European group does win the bid for the 2018 World Cup, as I believe they will, this makes them ineligible for 2022, meaning only the Australia, Japan, USA, Indonesia, South Korea, and Qatar bids would be eligible.

Let’s look at the bids, first up:

Australia

2010 and 2014 will be the first time two consecutive World Cups have been held in the Southern Hemisphere.  Since we’ve already established the Aussies are all but out of contention for 2018, will FIFA decided 2022 is time for the tournament to return to the Southern Hemisphere?  One potential issue with Australia’s bid is because of the way the season’s work, all of their other popular sports (rugby, cricket, Aussie rules football) are in season during the World Cup, so that will pose logistical issues with stadium use.  Australia has never had the World Cup, although they have hosted some minor soccer tournaments and of course the Olympics in 2000.

I like this logo, it does a good job of conveying the Aussie free-spirited nature.  Warm colors and the bright circle in the middle reminds me of the bright sun bearing down on the Outback, with a hint of a lens flare in the middle on the kangaroo to really sell it.  The kangaroos are jumping around with a soccer ball, reminding us that kangaroos love sports, be it soccer or boxing.

Bid Grade: B

Logo Grade: B

Average Grade: B

Belgium and the Netherlands

Belgium and the Netherlands are combining their resources to try to compete with the big boys and it seems they’re still coming up a bit short.  They don’t have a stadium that seats 80,000 or more people for the final, but they have committed to build one if they get the bid.  Only five cities would host games, as opposed to the more normal 8-10.  The relatively short distances between venues would be an advantage for fans traveling to several matches though.

Ok I have to say I don’t totally get this one.  We’ve got the crests for the countries on each side and the dates of the bids at the bottom.  But what is happening in the middle?  We have the colors in the flags for each country (most of the colors at least, unless the red/orange from the Netherlands is acting as the red for Belgium), and the colored stripes are beveled all around in the outline of a circle, which is intersected by a soccer ball.  The red/orange from the Netherlands intersects the yellow from Belgium to make a little sliver of orange, which has to have been intentional.  Either I’m completely missing the awesomeness of this logo, or it’s just not that great.  I expected better from Belgian and Dutch graphic designers.

Bid Grade: C

Logo Grade: C

Average Grade: C

England

England can and does make a claim to be the father of modern soccer, so they have a lot of political weight to throw around.  They hosted the 1966 World Cup and Euro ’96.  They obviously have the soccer infrastructure to handle a World Cup, and they will be coming off of the hosting duties for the 2012 Summer Olympics, so a World Cup should be easy.

Now we’re talking.  Minimal text, just the years with a vertical line separating them.  And then the graphic: simultaneously recognizable as a soccer ball and as England spelled out.  Obvious color choice to go with red on the white background for England, but it works.  My only real gripe is that the letters are a little hard to read, and it’s a bit awkward to read one word on what is effectively three lines.  The first truly clever design we’ve seen.

Bid Grade: A

Logo Grade: A

Average Grade: A

Japan

We will revisit this again when we get to Korea, but it’s hard to get past the fact that Japan co-hosted the tournament with Korea in 2002, which is very recently in terms of the World Cup.  A small but dense country, they have the transportation infrastructure to handle the influx of visitors a World Cup brings, but they don’t currently have the necessary Soccer infrastructure.

Similar to England with the soccer ball motif, and probably unfair to compare directly afterwards.  I like the use of text, especially the rising sun bullet point separating Japan and the dates.  The soccer ball graphic isn’t working for me, the perspective of the pentagons look wrong towards the edges.  And the edges gives it the sense that it is spinning.  It actually reminds me of a ninja star, but I really doubt that’s what they were going for.

Bid Grade: C-

Logo Grade: B-

Average Grade: C

Russia

Russia is hosting the next Winter Olympics in 2014, and is no doubt hoping to capitalize on some of the stadium building and tournament logistics experience they gain to make the front-runners for a World Cup bid.  With Russia I see the sheer size of the country as a big obstacle.  With venues spread out over thousands of miles the costs for fans are going to be higher than other countries.

The graphic of the ball works for me here, you get the sense of dynamic movement and the accent colors incorporate the colors of the Russian flag.  The “20” element is way too strong for me, it dominates the logo too much and keeps drawing my eye back to that corner.  It’s clear why they did it, in order to capitalize on 2018 and 2022 having common beginnings, but I don’t think it ultimately does the overall graphic any favors.

Bid Grade: B-

Logo Grade: B-

Average Grade: B-

Spain and Portugal

Spain and Portugal certainly have the sporting infrastructure to pull off a successful World Cup bid.  The largest soccer stadium in Europe is in Barcelona, and Madrid’s stadium is right up there.  The geographic area is not so large as to pose serious problems.  Spain hosted the 1982 World Cup, and Portugal hosted Euro 2004.

Here’s another one I’m not sure I get.  I’m trying to give the benefit of the doubt to these logos that I just don’t like that much, and hope that there’s some national reference or something that I’m missing due to personal ignorance.  But on the other hand shouldn’t the logo have been designed so that it’s instantly recognizable to people?  I know I’m looking at these logos about 50 times longer than most people will be, so I feel like I would pick up on anything subtle.  But I digress.  Let’s see, the swaths of color are vaguely round, so that must be a soccer ball.  We’ve got the colors from both flags.  I dunno, help me out here…

Bid Grade: B+

Logo Grade: C-

Average Grade: B-

USA

The United States hosted the 1994 World Cup, breaking all of the attendance and financial records for a World Cup in the process, so it’s hard to say the demand isn’t there, it just seems to be hidden most of the time.  Sporting infrastructure is not a problem, whereas some countries don’t have any stadiums that seat 80,000 or more, the US has seven.  The US bid has the highest total stadium capacity of any of the bids, and in terms of stadiums already existing, the US has more than all the other bids combined.  So that’s going to look good to the FIFA bigwigs with the top hats and monocles.  And unlike the Southern Hemisphere, US sports seasons will not impact the tournament.

Who knew that starfish played soccer?  We’ve got a swath of green representing the playing field with a ball lying on it.  Red, yellow, and blue are certainly the primary colors, so we’ll make the starfish guys be those colors.  Is this a reference to the fact that the United States is a multicultural country, and that people of all sizes and colors play soccer?  Let’s go with that.  The text is fine, if a little repetitive at this point, but that is not anyone’s fault.  I wish the images were higher resolution so we could look at the font choices some of the countries made, but alas.

Bid Grade: A

Logo Grade: C+

Average Grade: B+

Indonesia

I’ll give it to Indonesia, at least they’re clever: they are launching their bid as a “Green World Cup” with the hope that by focusing on the environment it will increase their chances of being picked.  Their sports infrastructure is lacking and would need a lot of new construction in order to be ready to host a tournament.  The Indonesian national team is currently ranked 137^th in the FIFA World Rankings, which can’t be helping their cause very much.

The first country that is only going for 2022, so that lightens the text requirements considerably.  I am definitely going to have to claim cultural ignorance on this one.  Ok, I just did some quick research, they have the most hilarious flag: two equally sized horizontal bars, top bar is red, bottom is white.  It looked a little familiar, and sure enough, Poland’s flag is reversed—white on top, red on bottom.  There’s a joke in there somewhere.  The graphic is round and black and white so I feel confident enough to hazard a guess that it’s referencing a soccer ball.  And the green leaf-type thing must be for the green World Cup.  I’m going to play the grading safe here.

Bid Grade: C-

Logo Grade: B

Average Grade: C+

South Korea

South Korea is bidding only for the 2022 World cup, but they still have the ghost of co-host Japan following them from 2002.  South Korea doesn’t currently have the stadiums built to handle a World Cup, but there economy is certainly in better shape than some of the other bidding countries and it seems reasonable that they would be able to get things ready in time if they were to get the bid.

Allright, Korea 2022, simple and effective text, in blue not black for a change.  And for graphics we have some twos and dots or zeros.  What Korea has chosen not to include almost says more than what they have put in—no soccer balls as such, although I’m not sure what the green dot on the right is if it’s not supposed to be a soccer ball.  I feel like between the red and blue 2s and dots it somehow spells out 2022, but I haven’t quite figured out how.  It seems like it makes more sense for 2020.  High marks for the idea, low marks for execution.

Bid Grade: C-

Logo Grade: C

Average Grade: C-

Qatar

Qatar is a small Arab nation of 1.3 million people, with more money than they know what to do with.  So from that perspective why not throw your hat in the World Cup ring?  The biggest problem with Qatar’s bid is that the World Cup is always in June and July, and the temperature in Qatar during these months rarely dips below 100°F.  Qatar says they will just build climate-controlled stadiums, but that doesn’t sound very much like a green World Cup, right Indonesia?

First off I like the font and color choices for the text, and the way the spacing is close together so that the Q drops down into the 2022.  We’ve got a tiny soccer ball in the center with pentagons of increasing size radiating out from it.  If there is significance to the patter or the coloring it’s lost on me.  Still something about it works for me for the most part, especially considering you have to think of this small country as a huge underdog in their bid.

Bid Grade: C-

Logo Grade: B-

Average Grade: C

Ok, now for the results!  We’ll break it down into predictions for 2018 and 2022 World Cups.  As we mentioned before, the odds are on a European World Cup in 2018, and a North American or Asian World Cup in 2022.  So the country with the highest grade for the World Cup in 2018 is:

England!

And the winner for the bid to the 2022 World Cup will be:

USA!

Winning bids will be announced in December 2010, we’ll check back then to see how our predictions fared.  Think we missed something or is someone else going to get the bid?  Let us know in the comments!