FINALLY, it’s official.

 

Exactly seven months after this column first served notice it was on the cards, FIFA has kicked off a bidding contest so big it may put even the Olympic Games in the shade.

 

World football’s governing body announced at the weekend that bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups would take place simultaneously.

 

Registration forms will be sent out next month and the host nations of both competitions should be appointed two years from now, in December 2010.

 

Recession or no recession, such is the level of interest that I would think that as many as 20 countries - including the United States, China, Russia, Australia and, of course, England - may seriously be considering whether to throw their hats into the ring for one or both contests.

 

My reading of the decision to award the two tournaments together is that it improves the prospects of a European nation winning in 2018.

 

"Money men calling the shots"

 

This is partly because it may encourage strong contenders from other parts of the world to focus primarily on 2022 in anticipation of Europe [as well as the 2014 host region South America] being out of the running.

 

Perhaps more importantly though, it suggests that FIFA’s money men are calling the shots.

 

And after staging two consecutive World Cups - South Africa 2010 and Brazil 2014 - outside the sport’s traditional European heartland for the first time ever, a return to football’s most familiar market in 2018 may appear commercially seductive.

 

You could imagine the US putting together a business case for hosting the 2018 tournament as compelling as European heavyweights like England, Russia and Spain, but it is hard to envisage anyone else doing so.

 

The commercial logic for appointing both hosts in 2010, particularly given the hard times we are now facing, is that it enables FIFA to tell prospective sponsors for the 2015-22 period exactly what they are buying.

 

Good time to do deals

 

FIFA’s present deals with its six leading sponsors - Adidas, Coca-Cola, Emirates, Hyundai, Sony and Visa - mainly run from 2007 to 2014.

 

If the body sticks with an eight-year contract period next time around, then the World Cups of 2018 and 2022 would be the main events of the next sponsorship cycle and 2011-12 looks the ideal period to be going to market with them.

 

Once a country from one of the six continental confederations has won the right to stage a World Cup, that confederation cannot supply the host nation of either of the next two editions of the tournament.

 

For example, there can be no African or South American bidders for the 2018 competition and South American nations are again ineligible for 2022.

 

This rule may present some prospective 2018 and 2022 bidders with an interesting tactical quandary.

 

European countries may have to decide whether to bid for 2022 as well as 2018, on the off chance that the US, say, or Australia pips them to the post for the first competition.

 

Members of the Asian confederation in particular will have to make up their minds whether to bid exclusively for 2022, knowing that if let’s say Australia did pull off an upset in 2018, their work would have been wasted.

 

My guess is that many bidders will go for both tournaments, especially as the extra cost of doing this should now presumably not be all that great.

 

This raises the prospect of FIFA’s executive committee being called upon to draw up an Olympic-style shortlist for both races.

 

I am also told that FIFA might ultimately decide to postpone the 2022 contest if it deemed the list of interested parties not strong enough.

 

Given the level of interest, though, I don’t think this is very likely - unless the impact of the economic downturn proves truly catastrophic.

 

"Remain focused on 2018"

 

For England, which has already put its eggs very firmly in the 2018 basket, the immediate consequences of FIFA’s announcement appear limited.

 

It will need to decide, like other European candidates, whether to mount an insurance bid for 2022 - and there may be some sort of steer on this on Tuesday when, I understand, a meeting of the World Cup bid board is scheduled.

 

But the main focus, come what may, will remain on winning the right to stage the 2018 tournament, as part of the British Government’s so-called Golden Decade of sport.

 

“We have to understand and think about the broader implications, but I think we need to remain focused on 2018,” Andy Anson, the newly appointed chief executive of the English bid, told me after FIFA’s decision became known on Saturday.

 

“I think by staying focused it will serve our best interests,” Anson said.

 

“Otherwise you could spend too much time worrying about what other people are doing.”

 

Speaking as a bit of a bid junkie, I didn’t expect again to experience anything quite like the 2012 Olympics race, pitting winners London against Paris, Madrid, New York and Moscow.

 

Now I am not so sure.

 

David Owen is a specialist sports journalist who worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the recent Beijing Olympics