New Zealand has an opportunity to be the big winner when the FIFA Under 20 Football World Cup arrives on its shores next year, the tournament's chief executive says.
Photo: RNZ / Michael Allan
FIFA representatives have been inspecting the seven cities hosting matches in May next year and have given them all the green light.
New Zealand has hosted FIFA tournaments before, with 1999 Under 17 World Cup and the 2008 Under 17 Women's World Cup. But this is the organisation's second-biggest tournament, behind the Men's Football World Cup.
Tournament chief executive Dave Beeche said a massive international television audience would benefit New Zealand hugely; past tournaments had netted an international television audience of about 200 million.
But huge television audiences were not the only positive, with 10,000 visitors expected for the tournament. That meant big financial gains for New Zealand.
"Obviously these major events have a positive economic impact from the direct visitation that comes from," Mr Beeche said.
"And we won't know where those people are going to come from and what the net effect of those are until we have the countries qualified. Obviously we hope countries like Argentina, Brazil, England and Australia all qualify because they will drive a certain level of interest."
NZ ready
FIFA's Marion Mayer-Vorfelder has been inspecting grounds nationwide and said New Zealand looked set for next year's tournament.
"We do not foresee any problems. But what we also found out is the enthusiasm of the various cities was just wonderful," she said.
"We had a great welcome in absolutely every city and we had the feeling that the cities are really happy to have the tournament, so that gives us a really good feeling about it."
Mark Paston, considered the hero of the New Zealand Men's 2010 World Cup Campaign for his outstanding goalkeeping, said the players could expect a special feeling when they played in such a big tournament.
"It creates a buzz which is quite hard to describe. So it's an opportunity for all the Kiwi boys to go out in front of a capacity crowd."
Whangarei, Auckland, Hamilton, New Plymouth, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin will all host games next year.
