Would Denver Be A Stop For The Next World Cup In The United States?

The United States will host another World Cup. It might be the 2022 World Cup if heads are finally screwed on straight and Qatar are stripped of the hosting duties that should have been ours in the first place. If not, there's very little chance that the cash cow we would provide for FIFA won't provide them enough incentive to give us the nod in 2026 or 2030. Either way, we'll see another World Cup in the United States someday, and Denver might be a host city.

Ryan Rosenblatt wrote a piece for SB Nation's main soccer hub yesterday talking about the potential spots that could land hosting privileges in the case of another American World Cup, and Denver naturally came up. It was brought up that Denver would provide a true linking point between the East/Midwest and West coast to give the country true coverage from sea to shining sea.

I think there's another reason that Denver will be an absolute shoe-in for hosting privileges, though. It has to do with surfaces. Yep, the old turf argument. From the SBN Soccer post:There is also the question of turf. Many of the countries' best stadiums have artificial surfaces and while the Silverdome hosted matches in 1994 on a temporary grass surface, they spent months cultivating it. Stadiums now have events year-round and convincing them to give up concerts and other events for months would be a tough sell. Meanwhile, the short-term temporary grass surfaces aren't very good -- some say worse than turf.

Would FIFA allow World Cup matches to be played on turf? Would the short-term grass be given the OK, and could it stand up for a month? Will there be a new solution by the time the U.S. hosts?

So what's our up? Sports Authority Field has one of the best grass surfaces of any NFL stadium. You know FIFA is going to want to make things as easy as possible and pick places with grass. Places like Seattle will get a spot simply because they're Seattle, and they'll work around the turf there, but a world-class stadium that already has grass, like SAF? It'll be hard to say no.

Just something to keep in mind for whenever something might come up about us getting a World Cup over here for the first time since 1994. We may have had to push really hard for the rights to host a Hex match at the Dick, but a World Cup hosting duty should be absolutely easy pickings for Denver. Just store that away for when Sepp Blatter finally dies a gruesome death and FIFA reconsiders Qatar. Or something.