3 Dec 2010

Russia, Qatar win 2018 and '22 World Cup hosting rights

7:20 am on 3 December 2010

Russia have won the right to host the 2018 World Cup football finals, and Qatar will stage the 2022 finals, both first time hosts.

After announcing the winning bids, FIFA's president Sepp Blatter said he was delighted the Cup finals would be breaking new ground.

Russia beat the challenges of three other European bidders, England and the joint bids of Netherlands/Belgium and Spain/Portugal, while Qatar took the honours for 2022 over Australia, Japan, South Korea and the United States.

No details of the counts were made available by FIFA, but according to the England bid member Gary Lineker, a former international, England had gone out in the first round of voting for 2018.

It was the first time FIFA had carried out a vote for two World Cup finals at the same time.