KC World Cup Bid Press Conference Tomorrow

photo courtesy of Thad Bell

Tomorrow at Arrowhead Stadium, the KC World Cup bid committee and Kansas City mayor, Mark Funkhouser will be hosting a press conference. Funkhouser is set to make "a major statement" about the city's bid to host the World Cup in Kansas City. Since the announcement of the press conference was made earlier today, I've been trying to figure out what the "major statement" by the mayor will be. Since the mayor is there, it definitely has to be something involving the city itself. This means it's unlikely to be anything about the World Cup itself or the cities that will be named in the USA's bid, although the USSF is going to be narrowing the bids down to their final 18 in December(slide 6).

I've been doing some research into what it could be, and I found this in my search. What this is, is the Host City Agreement that cities need to sign to be part of the bid process. It breaks down the hosting responsibilities of the city for the World Cup, everything from the selection of the cities, to posters advertising the event, to public transit, to even the base camps for the team (the link above from Hillcrest Road provides a ton of information about KC's bid). It needs to be signed by the city for the city to be considered in the final hosting for the country biding for the World Cup.

I've been able to confirm from a source that this is indeed what the announcement is supposed to be tomorrow, the fact that the city of Kansas City has signed the Host City Agreement. This is a big step for the city and the bid committee in their work to get the city of Kansas City to be one of the final 12 cities that will hopefully host either the 2018 or the 2022 World Cup.