World Cup Bid Power Index: England and USA Lead, Spain-Portugal Behind

(ATR) England stretches ahead of its rivals with the USA just edging Qatar as the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bid race enters the final straight. With just two days until the FIFA vote, the fourth edition of the World Cup Bid Power Index reveals World Football INSIDER's final analysis of the nine bidders.

Despite Spain-Portugal's status as favorite in some quarters, England now boasts a 14-point lead over the Iberian bid in the index, which shows the relative strengths and weaknesses of all the bidders for the two tournaments.

England also enjoys a three-point advantage over Russia, for which some flaws were highlighted in FIFA's evaluation reports.

In the 2022 contest, the USA top the rankings. But Qatar's deficiencies, underscored by FIFA in those inspection dossiers, are countered by its alliance with Spain-Portugal and a PR machine with real momentum heading into the last 48 hours of lobbying.

Ahead of the Dec. 2 vote by the FIFA Executive Committee, the bid power index looks very different from the Sept. 29 edition when Russia was coming back at England and Qatar was sliding out of the reckoning.

The new rankings reflect the conclusions of FIFA's detailed evaluation reports on the bidding nations that were published two weeks ago, along with developments made by the bids and the ups and downs of their campaigns over the past two months.

For the complete index as well as in-depth analysis of each bid's strengths and weaknesses, click here.

Written by Mark Bisson and James Corbett.