FIFA's keenness to push the World Cup finals around as many parts of the world as possible has not been lost on New Zealand who are apparently eyeing up the possibility of becoming joint hosts with Australia.
Oceania is the only Continent still to stage the tournament despite Australia, which lost out to Qatar in 2022, having a strong record of staging major sporting events.
Australia and New Zealand recently joint hosted cricket's World Cup and according to the latter, there are reasons to be optimistic the same could happen in football.
Martin Snedden (pictured), the former New Zealand cricketer who is now a leading sports administrator and headed organisation of the 2011 rugby World Cup, told Reuters the idea of jointly hosting football's showpiece event was still in its infancy but that his country was examining the possibility.
"This is a big idea and ultimately it might prove to be a pipe dream, but we have come so far and these are the types of things we should be prepared to be examining," said Snedden.
"Even if ultimately we choose that we can't do it, these are the sorts of opportunities that we are good enough to be looking at and taking seriously.
"We have come a long way in a short time. We have a lot of capable people over New Zealand and a lot of goodwill. If we wait too long and aren't aspirational then that will dissipate."
With CONCACAF favourites to land the World Cup in 2026, the first time New Zealand, which stages the forthcoming under-20 event, could realistically hold the senior tournament would be 2030.
A potential World Cup bid had already been broached with central government and New Zealand sports authorities, said Sneddon, but no approach had yet been made to Australia.
He envisaged if a joint bid went ahead, Australia would host 70% of the tournament, with the rest in New Zealand where the four main centres would be Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.
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