Last week, England launched their bid for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups in the Bobby Moore room at Wembley, thankfully without uttering a word about "football's coming home". At the deadline last March, a total of nine countries had entered a bid to FIFA for 2018 and 2022 and a further two for solely 2022. This is the first time countries have been allowed to bid for consecutive tournaments and those who are unsuccessful with their 2018 bid will go into the hat for 2022. The countries bidding for both 2018 and 2022 are Australia, England, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Russia, USA and joint bids from Portugal-Spain and Netherlands-Belgium. Qatar and South Korea have applied for the 2022 tournament only. Applying countries must submit their bidding agreements by 11 December 2009 with the winning candidates being announced by the 24-man executive committee a year later.

2018 also marks the end of FIFA's rotation of the World Cup. Started in 2000, rotation involved the tournament passing in turn from continent to continent, meaning that the 2010 World Cup could be staged for the first time on the African continent. However, it also meant that only Brazil was in contention for 2014 so the system was dropped for 2018. The confederations whose associations have held the two preceding tournaments will not be eligible to bid though.

Following on from my Europe round-up last week, here are a few lines concerning the rest of the world (from this, you'll understand this blog is written on a European horizon as that's where I am). In Argentina, Lanus stay top with four matches remaining. Closest rivals are Velez Sarsfield, one point behind, and Huracan, a further point behind. Internacional opened up a two point gap after three games of the new season in Brazil. Nautico and Atletico are two points adrift with Cruzeiro a further point behind. Plenty of time left in Brazil though. Mexico's finale will be between Pachuca and Pumas after both teams scored late to win their semi-finals. Venezuala's Primera Division final first leg between Deportiva Italia and Caracas ended all square at 1-1.

I'll be writing a special blog later this week just for the Champions League final, until then:

All the best.