updated 9:49 a.m. ET March 1, 2007

LONDON - It’s the biggest event in the world’s most popular sport, so deciding where soccer’s World Cup is staged should be simple, right?

Not so.

World governing body FIFA has the job of finding the hosts and has created a system that just won’t stand still. Someone keeps moving the goalposts.

The idea of rotating the championship through the confederations of world soccer was widely acclaimed when FIFA announced it seven years ago. It meant regions knew years in advance that soccer’s biggest event would be coming their way.

Now there are proposals to change it and the result is confusion.

“I am not a prophet,” FIFA president Sepp Blatter told reporters in London on Wednesday. “Perhaps sometimes I am a visionary, but I cannot see where the World Cup is going.”

It used to be a simple job when the World Cup would alternate between Europe and Latin America, the regions that have traditionally produced the champions.

Now it’s a totally global event, also traveling through North America, Asia and Africa, and finding a suitable host has proved a lot tougher than expected.

The next World Cup in 2010 will be in South Africa. That was decided three years ago. There’s a strong chance it will be in Brazil in 2014 and that venue will be decided when FIFA’s executive committee meets in Durban, South Africa, in November.

After that?

The media in England, which last staged the World Cup in 1966, are talking up a bid for 2018. The country has top quality stadiums, including a new 90,000 capacity Wembley, Manchester United’s 76,000-seater Old Trafford and Arsenal’s 60,000 Emirates Stadium. When the British government announced it would support such a bid England was considered a shoo-in.

Big mistake.

Blatter said Wednesday that, if the rotation system continued to apply, then it would be CONCACAF’s turn to host the 2018 World Cup. The United States is part of CONCACAF, which includes Mexico and Canada, and the U.S. Soccer Federation’s board announced last Friday it would be interested.

Simple then. Forget England or any other European country and let’s look at the good old USA.

Not so fast.

According to Blatter, CONCACAF won’t get the 2018 World Cup if FIFA decides that North America shouldn’t get the World Cup immediately after South America. If that happens, 2018 could go to Asia.

But this all depends on whether FIFA keeps the rotation system going at all. Or uses the rotation system, but starts it all over again with 2014. Or 2018. Or even 2010.

Europe, having staged it last year in Germany, wants the World Cup back as soon as possible and doesn’t want to wait 16 years or more. If rotation starts again, it might insist on being second or third in the order.

There’s even a chance South America won’t get the 2014 World Cup after all.

Since South America got its position in the rotation system, it has been widely considered that no one would challenge soccer powerhouse Brazil because 2014 is the centennial of its federation.

Colombia has put in a rival bid, but Blatter said Wednesday that was little more than a token gesture that had the advantage of taking attention away from its drugs and crime problems.

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“Colombia is more a public relations presentation of the country to say that we are alive not only in other headlines but also in football,” Blatter said.

“For those who know the history of the World Cup, in 1986 the World Cup was decided to be organized in Colombia. Only three years before in March 1983, the Colombian federation informed FIFA that they were not able to host it.”

Then there are fears that Brazil might not do the job, either. Its stadiums are in poor shape and transportation is a major problem. So FIFA would be forced to move the World Cup elsewhere if it became clear Brazil can’t make the improvements needed to stage a 32-team championship and transport hundreds of thousands of fans around its vast country.

If that happens, then someone else may have to bail out FIFA and stage the event.

England or the United States, maybe?

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