Will texts help Philadelphia land the World Cup?

Crawl area viewers saw on broadcast of World Cup Final won’t really have much effect on whether the U.S. gets soccer’s biggest tournament.

Philadelphia area soccer fans who watched Spain win the World Cup Sunday may have noticed a ticker running across the bottom of the screen urging them to text in support of Philadelphia’s bid to host future World Cup games.

Philadelphia Sports Congress Executive Director Larry Needle says the tally of texts are sent to the U.S. World Cup Bid Committee – to show the city’s soccer strength.

Needle says right now the United States is vying to host the World Cup in 2018 or 2022 and Philadelphia is one of eighteen U.S. cities in the running to host games.

“When you look at the size of our media market, when you look at our geography in the heart of the Northeast Corridor. When you consider Lincoln Financial Field and how fantastic a venue that is for soccer, really the kind of soccer market we’ve shown we have and the Union is now a big part of that, I think we have a tremendous package at the end of the day and we’re ultimately optimistic ‘will make us a World Cup city.”

FIFA will announce the host countries for 2018 and 2022 in December. World Cup tournaments are awarded to countries, not cities.

Philadelphia hosted games for the Women’s World Cup in 2003.