The nine bids vying to stage the 2018 or 2022 World Cup gathered at FIFA headquarters in Zurich on May 14 to present their final bid dossiers to Sepp Blatter.
Bid teams from Australia, England, Holland-Belgium, Japan, South Korea, Qatar, Russia, Spain-Portugal, USA submitted their documentation.
ATR's sister publication, World Football Insider, was on the scene at the handover ceremony, an important milestone in the bidding contest. FIFA experts will scrutinise the bid files and conduct visits to each of the bidding countries over the summer. FIFA's 24-man executive committee will decide the hosts of the 2018 and 2022 tournaments on Dec. 2.
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