With the extended timeframe for the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) now passed, any hope of a bid from New Delhi for the 2019 Asian Games has now faded. 

The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) on Thursday told the IOA that they have a “couple of days” to submit the bid documents required for New Delhi to be considered to host the Asian Games in 2019. 

That window of opportunity has now closed, the IOA confirmed on Monday. 

To submit a bid, the IOA needed full political backing and had requested an urgent meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was only elected in May. 

"We failed in our efforts to meet the Prime Minister,” IOA secretary general Rajeev Mehta told Reuters. 

The IOA had sought a 15-day extension, but this request was rejected by the OCA.

"Honestly, the time was too short. There's no one to blame ... neither the government nor the IOA. We tried our best but it was not enough.

"There is no more chance of bidding for the 2019 Asian Games."

The host of the 2019 Asian Games was originally elected to be Hanoi at an OCA meeting in Macau in November 2012. However, the Vietnamese government withdrew Hanoi from hosting the event, leaving the OCA seeking a replacement. The deadline for applying for candidacy for the Games was set as 1 July 2014.

New Delhi had already put in a bit for the 2014 Asian Games, which takes place from 19 September to 4 October, but it lost out to the South Korean city of Incheon. The OCA is due to announce the new host city of the 2019 Asian Games on 20 September, 2014.

After extensive consultation with several senior figures in the business of major events, cities and sports, HOST CITY has identified a demand for a forum that addresses three major concerns:

• Cities are often on the fringes of the debate about bidding for and hosting major events
• There is a pressing need to create a dialogue between cities and rights holders 
• The rights holders of sports, business and cultural events don’t have enough opportunities to meet with cities and each other

HOST CITY: BID TO WIN, which takes place in London on 28th October 2014, with a reception on 27th, will satisfy this demand. 

Confirmed speakers include: Sir Craig Reedie, Vice-President, IOC; Hasan Arat, Executive Board Member, European Olympic Committee (EOC); Dimitri Kerkentzes, Counsellor and Chief of Staff, BIE, David Grevemberg, CEO designate, Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF), Mike Lee, Chairman, VERO; Peter Tindemans, Secretary-General, EuroScience; Janez Kocijančič, Vice President, International Ski Federation and Robert Datnow, Managing Director of The Sports Consultancy.

“Often, the subject of creating and maintaining long-term relationships between the federations and their public sector hosts is not fully explored,” Robert Datnow told HOST CITY.

“So, I am interested to see a conference which focuses equally on the perspective of host cities and rights holders which will I think create an invaluable dialogue on the relationship between the two, outside the context of any particular bid, which spans cultural, entertainment and business events as well as sport, where there are similar themes and much cross-industry best practice to share."

Topics to be discussed include: Olympic Agenda 2020; evaluating bidding & hosting, insights into successful bids, infrastructure, transport & security strategies; campaigning to win, and winning for the future.

“As a speaker, I am hoping to be able share insights from working with some of the world’s most major events and rights holders, particularly on bid structures, themes and components which rights holders specifically look for from bids,” said Datnow.

“Cities, along with regional and national governments, are often not given the voice they deserve at the major conferences, and often cities do not speak with one voice about the issues of common interest and concern.

“Governments have much to say to rights holders on the subject of bidding for major sporting, cultural and entertainment events, as one of the greatest investors in events and as one of the most major long-term beneficiaries. They also have much in common. Rights holders too have much to learn from serial bidders and hosts of the world’s most major events."

HOST CITY: BID TO WIN takes place in central London on 28th October, with a networking dinner on 27th October. Visit www.bidtowin-hostcity.net to register

Mexico City has simultaneously been awarded the right to host archery’s two biggest events : the World Cup Final in 2015 and the World Championships in 2017. 

Mexico is a fast-growing region for the sport, developing into a key market for international archery following the team’s success at the London 2012 Olympic Games. Mexico was the only nation to put two athletes on the same podium at London 2012, with Aida Roman winning recurve women’s silver and Mariana Avitia winning bronze. 

The hosting rights were awarded through a bidding procedure.

“There is a formal bid process, with candidate cities, countries or federations submitting a World Archery-standard bid document and questionnaire, which is usually supported by an additional dossier produced by the LOC,” a spokesperson for World Archery told HOST CITY.

“Our Executive Board votes on its preferred hosts based on this bid documentation.”

Poland and Ukraine had also put in a joint bid for the 2017 World Championships. The World Archery federation was founded in Lviv and a bid is anticipated for future event, particularly as the 2019 World Championships will be the 50th edition. 

And for the 2015 World Cup Final, South Korea was the other party interested in hosting rights. 

World Archery cited the backing of Mexico City’s Mayor Dr Miguel Angel Mancera, Director of Sport and former athlete Mr Horacio de la Vega, national government and broadcasters as the key players in persuading the World Archery Executive Board to award both events to the same organiser.

“It is a sport on the rise in popularity and participation and there is a significant audience for its international events and athletes within the country,” de la Vega said.

2015 will be the second time that Mexico has hosted the Archery World Cup Final, after hosting the inaugural World Cup Final at the Mayapan Pyramids in 2006, when nearby Merida also hosted the World Archery Youth Championships.

Mexico City hosted the Olympic Games in 1968 and has also hosted the Pan American, Caribbean and Central American Games. 

Mexico City promoted its candidature by creating the Mexican Challenge, first held at the end of 2013. The innovative event – produced by Moveo Lab, the sports company that will organise both the newly-awarded tournaments – pitched eight of Mexico’s finest against eight top archers from the rest of the world.

World Archery Secretary General Mr Tom Dielen said “With the Mexican Challenge concept, this organising committee proved that it shares our values of putting athletes at the heart of international archery competition. We are confident it will build on that success with two of World Archery’s flagship tournaments.”

The two tournaments offer very different dynamics. The annual World Cup Final is held over a weekend, features the year’s top 32 athletes and focuses on individual match-play and sports presentation. The final of the 2014 Archery World Cup will be held in the Olympic capital of Lausanne, where World Archery has its headquarters. 

The biannual World Championships involve more than 500 archers from 70 nations over ten days. The 2015 World Archery Championships will be hosted in Copenhagen.

For future events, prospective host organisations can contact World Archery directly to see which events are currently open for bidding.

Austria, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland’s NOCs have submitted a paper to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) entitled “Olympic Agenda 2020: The Bid Experience", which proposes a revolutionary change to the process of selecting host cities of the Olympic Games. 

The paper briefly explains why all four nations have retracted bids to host Olympic Games in recent years, and sets out what could be done to make the prospect of bidding again more appealing.

The most bold suggestion is that the IOC Evaluation Commission’s findings should count directly towards the election of the host city. Currently, the host city is elected entirely by secret ballot by IOC members, after they have read the Evaluation Commission’s report, but this report does not directly count - only the votes do.

“The IOC could split the election into two equally weighted parts, one representing the technical evaluation with a ranking of all bid cities, and one representing the vote of the IOC members,” the NOCs’ paper states.

The IOC is currently undergoing a deep and wide review into all areas of its activities, with a major focus on bidding procedure. The findings of the “Agenda 2020” review will not be made public until November 2014 but the early appeal from these influential NOCs is a highly significant move.

All four committees have backed out of Olympic bids in recent years. The Austrian Olympic Committee was considering a bid of Vienna for the 2028 Olympic Games while the German, the Swedish and the Swiss Olympic Committees were looking into the possibility of bidding for the 2022 Olympic Winter Games.

“The striking element welding all four committees together is the fact that all above mentioned bids were not lost in the official bid process, but due to a lack in national or at least regional public or political support,” the paper states.

The NOCs of these established European nations spell out the concerns they have about bidding for the Olympic Games.

“Public and politics seemingly fear the high costs of bidding for and hosting the Games, especially in the aftermath of the increase of costs that was witnessed in Sochi as well as concerns relating to human rights and sustainability,” the NOCs said. “The situation is aggravated by the media picturing mistrust in the IOC.”

Another suggestion from NOCs is that the IOC’s role in financing the Olympic Games should be communicated more clearly to the public, pointing out that “the budget structure is quite confusing for uninvolved citizens.”

The letter is signed by: Dr. Peter Mennel, Secretary General, Austrian Olympic Committee; Dr. Michael Vesper, Director General, German Olympic Sports Confederation; Stefan Lindeberg, President, Swedish Olympic Committee; and Jörg Schild , President, Swiss Olympic Association. 

The concerns of the paper are being addressed by the IOC’s Agenda 2020 Working Group on Bidding Procedure, of which Hasan Arat is a member. To find out more, register for HOST CITY: BID TO WIN conference and hear experts including Arat debating this hot topic on 28th October.

President Blatter, the head of world football’s governing body FIFA, will deliver a formal address to Soccerex delegates on Monday 8th September, the organisers have confirmed. This will be Blatter’s ninth Soccerex appearance over the past 19 years. 

His appearance at Soccerex Global Convention comes at a significant time in relation to the investigation by FIFA prosecutor Michael Garcia into the bidding process for the Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cups, with the investigatory chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee recently stating that “we expect to deliver our report to the adjudicatory chamber by the first week of September 2014”. 

In a one-to-one interview with Jeff Powell of the Daily Mail, Blatter will also address the latest issues affecting the global game and looking back on a fantastic FIFA World Cup in Brazil.

“FIFA and their President have always been enthusiastic supporters of Soccerex, but welcoming President Blatter to another event is always a huge honour for me,” said Soccerex CEO Duncan Revie. 

“The interview is set to be one of the most important sessions in the history of Soccerex and will command a huge media presence all over the world.”

The Soccerex Global Convention kicks off with the Football Festival on 6-7th September, with the conference starting on Monday 8th September. A packed international exhibition and a programme of networking and social events complete the schedule for the world leading football business event.

For more information about Soccerex please visit http://www.soccerex.com/global or call +44 (0)20 8987 5522 or email enquiry@soccerex.com

As part of the Olympic Agenda 2020, a “strategic roadmap for the future of the Olympic Movement”, the summit addressed a raft of potential reforms which are set for further deliberation at the Extraordinary IOC Session in December.

A reform to the Olympic Games bidding procedure was one of the proposals discussed at the summit. The alterations, which were broadly supported by the summit, place a new emphasis on the legacy aspects of host city bids and how that can be brought to the population of the city as well as the surrounding area.

Potential hosts would have to exhibit how the Games would be a part of the long-term development plan not only for the city, but for the whole region and would include scrutiny into the social and environmental aspects of the developments. The summit also supported the need for Olympic Movement stakeholders to remain open to adaptation on these issues.

According to the Agenda 2020 proposal the new bidding procedure would also give more flexibility to bid cities but there would be greater emphasis on what the bid process, and the resulting Games, would bring to the host and its citizens from the very beginning of the bid procedure. These reforms reflect a growing trend in the standards set for host city candidates to provide more sustainable and legacy driven bids that take into account the wider ramifications of their event.

Convened by IOC President Thomas Bach, the summit centred on the three major themes of sustainability, credibility and youth, as well as 14 other sub-themes.

As well as proposed changes to the bidding procedures the summit focused on a new methodology to the Olympic Programme. This alternative approach would provide an event-based, rather than a sport-based, composition to the programme, which could lead to a greater range of events than seen previously while continuing to restrict the number of athletes involved.

The establishment of an Olympics Television Channel was also considered, with the notion of promoting the Olympics and its values in between Games, as well as new measures to ensure the protection of clean athletes in conjunction with the World Anti-Doping Agency.

To find out more, register for HOST CITY: BID TO WIN conference on 28th October and get the inside track on Agenda 2020 reforms.

The South African city of Durban and the Canadian city of Edmonton are the only two cities in contention for the 2022 edition of the Games after a series of cancelled bids. 

The president of the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) Gideon Sam presented the bid alongside chief executive Tubby Reddy, the head of sport for the City of Durban Vuzi Mazibuko and South Africa’s minister of sport Fikile Mbalula. 

The Durban presentation highlighted the city’s previous hosting successes including the football, rugby and cricket world cups and emphasised Durban’s current sporting facilities, its tourist attractions and the city’s infrastructure capabilities. 

A video was screened alongside the presentation and referenced the late Nelson Mandela and his beliefs about the power of sport. It ended by saying: “It’s Africa’s turn to host its sons and daughters for the first time on home soil… in the city where Nelson Mandela chose to cast his first vote. Let Durban be the first African city to host the Commonwealth Games,”

Minister Mbalula vowed his support for the bid and guaranteed the country’s commitment to the Games and called upon the federation to award Africa its first ever Commonwealth Games. “We guarantee the government will play its part in hosting the most successful sporting events in South Africa,” said Mbalula. “The Commonwealth Games to us are important Games in terms of what we seek to achieve collectively over the years. It’s our turn as the African continent.”

Meanwhile, Edmonton’s bid was introduced by Commonwealth Games Canada president Andrew Pipe before chairman of the 2022 bid, Reg Milley, made the presentation. Milley focused his address around learning from the upcoming Games in Glasgow. “We’re in Glasgow to listen. We’re here to learn,” said Milley.

Durban’s bid presentation has already been highly praised by sections of the South African media but the final vote will not be cast until September 2015 when the Commonwealth Games Federation meets in Auckland, New Zealand.

CEO of Glasgow 2014 and incoming CEO of the Commonwealth Games Federation, David Grevemberg will be speaking at the HOST CITY: BID TO WIN conference. To find out more, register for HOST CITY: BID TO WIN on 28th October.

The Indonesian capital of Jakarta is on track to be named as the surrogate host city for the 2018 Asian Games, according to various media reports coming from the country. 

The Vietnamese city of Hanoi was originally selected as the host by the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) until the government withdrew from the Games in April citing concerns over financial viability and a lack of preparation.

New Delhi was originally considering a bid to host the Games as a replacement for Hanoi but missed a deadline set by the OCA to enter their bid. Various Asian media organisations are now reporting the OCA has settled on Jakarta as the best replacement for Hanoi following inspections of the city by honorary vice president Wei Jizhong. 

Jizhong has reportedly said that Jarkata’s infrastructure already meets the set requirements and is almost ready to host the Games but may co-host the event with the city of Palembang. 

This is despite previous claims by the Jakarta Deputy Governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, that the city would require the construction of mass and light rapid transit systems, loop lines for electric trains, six toll roads and improvements to the city’s public bus network before it will be ready to host the games.

However, Jakarta already has a range of sporting venues built in the city and surrounding regions meaning only a limited amount of large scale construction work would be required to hold the event.

Indonesian Olympic Committee chairperson Rita Subowo was joined by Jizhong on the inspection of the country’s potential Games facilities which included Gelora Bandung Lautan Api stadium which could be used for the football tournament. 

Subowo said that other cities in the West Java and Depok regions of the country would be needed in order to host the Games but she remained optimistic about Indonesia’s potential to host the event and told reporters that Jakarta is close to meeting the criteria set in order to host the Games.

HOST CITY asked the OCA for more details about the bidding process and other candidates to host the Games, but the organisation declined to comment.

Dubai government officials have revealed plans to expand the emirate’s sporting facilities with an eye to bidding for a future Olympic Games.

The National Olympic Committee of the United Arab Emirates previously opted out of a bid for the 2020 Olympic Games with the intention of placing a bid for the 2024 or 2028 Games instead.

Ali Omar, Director of Dubai Sports Council sports development department, recently revealed that those intentions are still in place. “Hosting the Olympics is a dream,” said Omar. “We hope to submit such a bid within the next eight years, God willing.”

Their Gulf Arab neighbours Qatar have been rumoured to also be considering a bid for the 2024 Games, for the city of Doha, following their success in securing the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

Omar cited Qatar’s success as an important factor that could help Dubai bring another major global event to the region. "Qatar's move has brought the world's attention to professional sports in the whole Gulf Arab region," said Omar.

Dubai already has a prestigious history in hosting global sports events including the Sevens World Series, the Dubai World Cup thoroughbred horse race, the Dubai Desert Classic golf tournament, the Dubai Tennis Championships and a number of international cricket matches due to political unrest in Pakistan. Dubai will also host Expo 2020, a universal exposition taking place over six months which could  set the stage for hosting an Olympic Games shortly afterwards.

The Dubai Sports City, a 50 million square feet purpose-built sports hub, would also add considerable weight to the bid with a 60,000 seated multi-purpose outdoor stadium, a 10,000 seated indoor arena, rugby and hockey stadiums and a golf course all situated within the colossal development.

The National Olympic Committee of the United Arab Emirates estimated in 2011 that 70 percent of the infrastructure needed for a Games in Dubai was already in place. But despite this Dr Ahmed Al Sharif, Dubai Sports Council secretary general, recently told media that more stadiums and facilities would be needed in order to host an Olympic Games in the city.

Edmonton, the Canadian city bidding to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games is looking forward to hosting a much smaller event in 2015 – the FIBA Americas Women's Championships, because it fits with its strategy of attracting events that the community is interested in.

“We are very excited to be hosting the FIBA Americas Women's Championships in August 2015,” Candice Stasynec, executive director of Edmonton Events told HOST CITY. 

“In our event strategy we have identified specific events and activities that make sense for our community. It is gratifying to see the strategy coming to life.”

Basketball has been targeted as a key sport for the city. “What is so satisfying about winning this event is that is part of our larger strategy of further developing Edmonton as a centre of excellence in basketball and the home of basketball in Canada,” she said.

“The Canadian Senior Women's National Basketball Team calls Edmonton home now. We are hoping to attract all the national teams to do the same.”

The reach of the event is boosted by the fact that the tournament will also serve as the qualifiers for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. 

“Our Canadian women’s national basketball team now has the opportunity to compete for an Olympic berth with a home-court advantage,” said Michele O’Keefe, Executive Director of Canada Basketball. “Hosting is a strategic priority for Canada Basketball and this Championship is a great step forward.”

Choosing the right event for cities to bid for is a key theme of HOST CITY’s Bid to Win conference in London on 28th October, which provides a unique dialogue between rights holders and cities.

Bal Gosal, Minister of State for Sport said “Hosting international sport events such as the FIBA Americas Championship for Women provides an opportunity for our athletes to achieve their podium goals in front of enthusiastic Canadian crowds and gives a great boost to the local economy.”

The Championships take place on 9-16 August 2015 with 10 teams from the Americas zone competing in the eight-day tournament. All 24 games are being played at the Saville Community Sports Centre (SCSC) at the University of Alberta’s South Campus in Edmonton.