America is the new Europe

Specifically, the Sydney Morning Herald's Michael Cockerill thinks Australia is going to pull a Steven Bradbury and get over the line while the other candidates fall in a heap before they get to it.

"The odds are 50-50 [with the United States] but they're good odds in context. FIFA will be richer if it gives the World Cup to the US but it will be broader if it gives it to Australia."

On your maths, respectfully, Cocko, I dissent.

America is better than 50-50. It has always been in the driving seat and nothing has changed, despite Soccer America scribe Paul Gardner's fears that the Sunday Times sting on Amos Adamu and Reynald Temarii might damage USA 2022.

In my opinion, FIFA will also be broader if it returns the World Cup to the States. Just taking a World Cup to a new territory doesn't make FIFA broader.

What makes FIFA broader is the number of people it can affect and convince and how it invests in the future so that the game's welfare internationally is ensured. Stronger is broader.

The success of USA 94, the explosive growth of Major League Soccer, the trend of investment in European club football by American business (most recently New England Sports Ventures' acquisition of Liverpool), the luring of some big stars (David Beckham, Thierry Henry, Rafael Marquez, et al) to finish out their playing careers across the Atlantic, the global branding efforts of clubs such as Los Angeles Galaxy, an established football-specific infrastructure and, above all, unfettered access to a market of hundreds of millions sports-mad, cashed-up, football-curious Yanks is what makes America, in my view and I'm sure FIFA's, the new Europe.

One day soon Major League Soccer will be among the top four football leagues in the world. That should be FIFA's aim in the event of awarding 2022 to the United States and it is eminently achievable.

To this day USA 94 remains the best-attended World Cup in history: a remarkable statistic when you consider it was just a 24-team tournament as against today's standard 32 and held in just nine cities.

A total of 3.6 million people went through the turnstiles in America that year. More than 5 million are expected for a tournament in 2022 with the carrot of over $1 billion just in gate receipts, something never achieved before.

Reach. It's what the World Cup is all about – through the gate and via the TV remote – and America offers virtually unparalleled reach to FIFA: in fans, in TV revenue, in merchandising sales, in multicultural imprint, in laying up a future platform for the game's global growth.

The only country offering more reach just through sheer weight of numbers is China and that country, as was affirmed this week by Asian Football Confederation president Mohamed Bin Hammam and Chinese Football Association chief Wei Di, is still in for 2026, despite an ever widening corruption probe that is ensnaring football officials and players.

Australia would have been a whole lot better placed had the Chinese officially pulled out, but as it stands it's business as usual.

England 2018. USA 2022. China 2026. It's a dazzling trifecta and would deliver both unprecedented reach and unprecedented profits to an organisation that is as commercially driven as it is mindful of legacy.

Australia has a completely sound case for its own World Cup and I believe will get it one day. I just don't think it will get it on December 2 nor should on merit, when judged against the claims of the Americans.

But good luck to Frank Lowy, Ben Buckley and the rest of the Australia 2022 bid team. They might not be neck and neck with the Americans coming into the home stretch, as Cockerill seems to think, but they're still in the race.

Win or lose, their unfailing tenacity and "never say die" conviction against the odds –a very Australian trait – has done the nation proud.