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Sepp Blatter: An 'omission' that Australia has not hosted World Cup

FIFA president Sepp Blatter has fired the opening salvo of his campaign for re-election by saying Australia deserves to host the World Cup.

Blatter, bidding for a fifth term at the head of world football's governing body, said it was an "unfortunate omission" that the nation had not done so before.

Australia gained only one vote when bidding for the 2022 World Cup, controversially awarded to Qatar, and some FIFA observers believe Blatter was the member of the FIFA executive committee who voted for them.

In his first column in FIFA Weekly magazine since confirming that he would be a candidate for the election in May, Blatter wrote: "Australia is the only continent never to have hosted the World Cup finals, although the 1981 and 1993 Under-20 World Cups took place there.

"That is basically an unfortunate omission in sporting history because very few countries boast such a rich sporting culture and long list of champions.

"Sport, with football in a central role, is a defining element in day-to-day life in Australia, not least for women and youths.

"So we can say with confidence that it would be more than deserved if Australia were to stage the World Cup at some point."

#INSERT type:image caption:Sepp Blatter believes an Australia-hosted World Cup is long overdue. END#

FIFA will not be publishing the list of those who have put themselves forward as candidates for its presidency until next week, despite the deadline having passed.

It is thought Blatter, Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein of Jordan, Dutch federation president Michael van Praag, former Portugal international Luis Figo, French ex-diplomat Jerome Champagne and former Tottenham and France winger David Ginola have all submitted their names.

Next week, FIFA's electoral committee will then decide who is ruled out by having failed to secure five nominations from among the 209 national associations that make up FIFA.

Blatter, Prince Ali, Figo and Van Praag all have at least five, but Champagne has been working hard to find enough backers while Ginola's campaign looks to be over almost before it started despite him cutting ties with the bookmaker who paid him 250,000 pounds to run.

The Football Association announced on Thursday that it was nominating Prince Ali, while the Scottish FA confirmed that it had nominated Van Praag.

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