Australia has received an assurance from world governing body FIFA that it still stands a chance of hosting the 2018 World Cup, Football Federation Australia president Frank Lowy said Monday.
There were fears that 2018 was a lost cause after FIFA president Joseph Blatter told reporters in Madrid last month that there was a "movement to make the 2018 cup a European affair."
"We still have as good a chance as before," Lowy told television station SBS.
"It's nothing new and the goal posts have not been moved." FIFA makes its decision on both 2018 and 2022 in Zurich in December.
Australia, Japan and the United States have flagged bids for 2018 and 2022. South Korea, Indonesia and Qatar are focusing lobbying on 2022.
Blatter has said the chances of Australia and other non-European bidders of hosting in 2018 are bleak.
Speaking in Sydney at the 2008 FIFA conference, Blatter said that, after being played in South Africa in 2010 and Brazil in 2014, "it's a logical approach that the World Cup 2018 competition would go back to the (northern) continent)."
But FIFA rules state than any country can bid to host the event.
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