THE FIFA World Cup is the biggest sporting event in the world. Every four years, billions of people across the globe tune in to see the world’s best footballers compete for the sport’s ultimate prize. But despite football’s history being entwined with England, only once has the showpiece event been hosted on these shores – in 1966.

Sixteen cities were bidding to be part of England’s latest attempt to capture the FIFA World Cup, before Portsmouth dropped out on Tuesday.

Unlike Portsmouth and Milton Keynes, Southampton was never approached by the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) to make a bid to be a host city.

Furthermore, the city may not have even had a football club anymore, had Marcus Liebherr not stepped in and bought the Saints in July – just two days before the FA expected cities to make known their intentions to be part of the bids for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments.

The club later approached the council about submitting a bid, only for the FA to slap them down and say they were too late to get an invite to the party.

Instead, Southampton supported Portsmouth’s bid, before the council there decided to pull the plug over fears of a £19m net loss for the city coffers.

Much of that money was to be spent on bringing the dilapidated Fratton Park up to the high standards demanded by FIFA.

That has given Southampton a slight glimmer of hope – no other city in the south has launched a bid to be a host city other than Plymouth, tucked away on the Devon coast.

That leaves an area stretching from Devon and Bristol in the west, to Milton Keynes in the north with no World Cup venue, with the exception of London.

The leader of Portsmouth City Council, Gerald Vernon-Jackson, has said he believes the FA would now want to see a late Southampton bid, to help plug that gap.

A key aim of the England 2018 bid has been to take the tournament to all parts of the nation, and leaving the south without a venue would go against this ideal.

On Wednesday, the bid team released a list of 93 criteria by which the cities bidding for host status will be judged, ranging from the quality of stadia and hotels to environmental concerns.

So how would any Sotonian bid stack up?

The first and aguably most important issue is the stadium.

St. Mary’s is already an UEFA Elite stadium, meeting the highest standards set out by the European governing body. Despite being the biggest stadium in the south bar London, it is at least 8,000 seats too small for a World Cup, with 32,689 seats.

According to Andrew Cowen, who was one of the board members of Southampton FC when the stadium was built in 2001, it has been designed to be extended to around a maximum 50,000 seats – 8,000 more seats on the Kingsland Stand and 5,000 on both the Northam and Chapel Stands.

Such an undertaking would be expensive, however.

Cowen estimated it would cost almost as much to extend as it did to build the stadium in the first place.

The city would also need training grounds with hotels nearby. The obvious candidate would be Saints’ Staplewood base in Marchwood, as well as other facilities such as Southampton University’s Wide Lane sports ground. Portsmouth was even planning on using Bournemouth AFC’s training ground.

For transport, few cities can boast the airport and motorway links, plus nearby continental ferry ports that Southampton can, and while many residents moan about the ever increasing number of hotel rooms in the city, they would very much be welcome in a host city.

Factors such as these could easily persuade large numbers of people to visit the city during the tournament – around 1.8 million live in Hampshire and, including nearby places such as Bournemouth, Reading and Salisbury, Southampton could be the nearest venue for at least 3 million people.

That is before you consider it being the nearest potential venue to mainland Europe.

The city can also boast experience of huge events.

By 2018 Southampton will have played host the to IRB Rugby World Cup, as well as a full England International in 2003, plus the annual boat show.

That’s not to mention some of the biggest footballing sides during Saints’ Premier League days, which hopefully will have returned by 2018.

Such experience would not go unnoticed and would be a massive boost in confirming that Southampton could cope with huge numbers of fans, not just from the south of England but across the world.

Since the 2006 World Cup in Germany, a key aspect of hosting large tournaments has been the fan fests.

These are large areas designed for thousands of fans to come together and watch matches on massive screens.

As part of Portsmouth’s bid, Southampton was to have a fan fest at Mayflower Park on the waterfront.

Southampton could easily support more at places such as Guildhall Square, the planned Town Plaza at WestQuay or even on the Common.

Away from football, tourist attractions such as Stonehenge, the Spinnaker Tower and even Southampton’s own historic town walls could all offer fans a break away from the stresses and strains of the beautiful game.

Click here to see the full list of criteria to become a host city.