Sunil Gulati, the chairman of the bid committee and President of US Soccer, said: “The USA Bid Committee is pleased to have received comprehensive responses from city officials and local organising committees across the United States.

 

 

“The overwhelming interest and creativity shown by the candidate cities made our extensive review process that much more difficult in narrowing down the list.”

 

The cities dropped were Birmingham, Cincinnati; Columbus, Fayetteville, Knoxville, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Salt Lake City and San Antonio.

 

The 27 remaining candidate cities offer a wide variety of markets that range in size from New York City to Jacksonville, Florida, as well as vast coast-to-coast geographic strength.

 

Numerous US cites that did not play host to matches during the World Cup, the last time the country hosted it, in 1994 remain under consideration, including Philadelphia, Cleveland, St. Louis, Denver, Seattle and Phoenix.

 

In conjunction with the list of 27 cities announced by the USA Bid Committee, a short list of 32 stadiums still under consideration was also announced today.

 

The venues average almost 74,000 in capacity and represent a wide spectrum of facilities, featuring stadiums typically used for college and professional football, including open-air, domed and retractable roof venues.

 

All 32 stadiums currently exist or are under construction with eight featuring capacities between 80,000 and 108,000 spectators.

 

The current list of venues came as a result of a four-month process that began in April with representatives from 58 stadiums expressing interest in being considered for the US bid.

 

The USA Bid Committee was then able to cut the list to 45 stadiums in 38 cities in mid-June following the review of a detailed questionnaire completed by the candidate venues that incorporated the strict FIFA facility requirements into the evaluation process.

 

Among the cities and stadiums still under consideration are the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, which hosted the 1994 World Cup final, when Brazil beat Italy on penalties, and the Coliseum (pictured) in Los Angeles, which staged the 1984 Olympics.

 

David Downs, the executive director of the US bid, said: “We will be working closely with officials from all 27 cities, stadiums and host committees over the next few months in our process of identifying the final list of cities that will be included in our bid book to FIFA in May 2010.

 

"The support of the individual cities and their capacity to promote the bid will be crucial to our efforts as we work to maintain the momentum created by the launch of our national campaign and our web page, goUSAbid.com, last week.

 

"With the passion for the game being shown by our fans and the existing infrastructure in place in the U.S., we are confident we have assembled a list of candidate cities that will meet and exceed FIFA’s requirements for hosting World Cup matches.”

 

FIFA’s criterion requires a candidate host nation to provide a minimum of 12 stadiums and a maximum of 18 capable of seating 40,000 or more spectators.

 

Stadiums with a minimum capacity of 80,000 are required by FIFA for consideration to play host to the opening match and the final.

 

The US used stadiums in nine cities when it hosted the 1994 World Cup.

 

The United States, Australia, England, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico and Russia have formally declared their desire to host the FIFA World Cup in 2018 or 2022. Netherlands-Belgium and Portugal-Spain have each submitted joint bids for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments, while Qatar and South Korea have applied as candidates to play host only to the tournament in 2022.

 

The full list of stadiums and cities currently still being considered are the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, the M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, the iGillette Stadium in Foxborough, the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, Soldier Field in Chicago, Browns Stadium in Cleveland, the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, the INVESCO Field in Denver, Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, Reliant Stadium in Houston, Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Jacksonville Stadium in Jacksonville, Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, the Coliseum in Los Angeles, the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, the Land Shark Stadium in Miami, LP Field in Nashville, Meadowlands in New Jersey, Oakland-Alameda Stadium in Oakland, the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, Stanford Stadium in Stanford, Qwest Field and Husky Stadium in Seattle, the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, the RFK Stadium in Washington and FedEx Field in Landover.