Indonesia confident of funding for bid
Reuters - Monday 04 January 2010, 14:57
JAKARTA - The Indonesian Soccer Federation
is confident that the country's government will provide the
necessary funding to support their ambitious bid to host the
2022 World Cup.
"We're waiting for the government to make their decision
whether they will back the bid," Indonesian soccer federation
secretary-general Nugraha Besoes told Reuters by telephone on
Monday.
"It involves so many ministries and a lot of deep, internal
discussions before we can get the guarantees we want, but we're
very optimistic they'll get behind this."
The surprise bid pledges to build seven new stadiums with
matches to be played in 11 major cities.
"The bid is still going on, we are still very serious about
having the World Cup finals here," Besoes said.
Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, have
only qualified for one World Cup in 1938 as the Dutch East
Indies.
They will compete with Australia, England, Japan,
Netherlands and Belgium, Russia, Spain and Portugal, United
States, Qatar and South Korea to host the event, with FIFA
announcing the hosts of the 2018 and 2022 editions in December.