Official Host Cities for the bid being submitted for the USA, Mexico and Canada in their unified attempt at hosting as the field jumps to 48. With this of course there are criteria which must be met to host games and other things, team camps, International Broadcast Center, hosting the draw etc. Each of the 44 cities are asked to reply with their interest by Sept. 2017. The next date of note in this process would be late Sept., the creation of a short list, Jan. 2018 more info is made available to the cities and questions addressed in advance of their final bid due in early Jan, 2018 this all leading up to the submission of 20-25 venues by March 16, 2018 to FIFA, makes sense with the high holiday of St. Patricks the next day.
All venues at a minimum need to seat 40,000 and 80,000 for both opening and final game considerations. Details sought include transportation, experience with large scale events, accomodations, enviromental protection initatives, venues and a plethora of other things. Along with these items sought will also be details as to having top international level training sites and locales for team camps, hotels for teams, staff and VIPs, committment to sustainable event management, goals in developing soccer and the positive social impact expected to derive from this event hosting.
Should be an interesting next few months. I have only been to 2 of the 37 stadiums being submitted in the USA and 1 out of the 3 in Mexico (1986 WC). The thing is each game is in and unto itself a Super Bowl so it is a gigantic task but many of the stadiums in the USA have already done so.