Australia's hopes of hosting the 2018 or 2022 World Cup have been hit by concerns from other sports which would run at the same time as the tournament.
Fifa regulations state that World Cup venues cannot run rival competitions at the same time as the finals.
Officials are set to apply for special exemption from Fifa to allow rugby union and league, as well as Australian rules football tournaments to continue.
The issue is likely to boost England's chances of hosting the 2018 tournament.
Australia are one of nine bids for either the 2018 or 2022 tournaments, along with England, Russia, the USA, Japan, Mexico, Indonesia and joint bids from Portugal-Spain and Netherlands-Belgium. Qatar and South Korea are also making bids solely for the 2022 finals.
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I think all the other codes understand there are substantial benefits to Australia as a nation to host the World Cup
Australia football chief Ben Buckley
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Although football is a summer sport down under, any World Cup in Australia would have to be scheduled in the southern hemisphere winter to avoid clashing with the European leagues.
World football governing body Fifa requires 12 venues with a minimum capacity of 40,000 people available for exclusive access for the World Cup for up to 10 weeks, a point of contention for two of Australia's three winter sports.
The National Rugby League (NRL) and Australian Football League (AFL) have long-term deals with established sporting venues like the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) and Sydney's Olympic Stadium, both of which would be showpieces in any World Cup campaign bid.
And Australian Rugby league chief executive David Gallop believed his sport would suffer if no agreement can be reached with 2018 bid officials.
"We're not trying to stop the World Cup bid but we are certainly concerned about the impact that it will have on our season, our fans and the financial position of our clubs," he said.
"I'll be meeting with the FFA (Football Federation of Australia) later this week and hopefully they can shed some light on what has really been proposed. We just can't disappear off the face of the Earth."
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606: DEBATE
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Although the AFL has said it would relinquish the MCG for the World Cup, it has no intention of doing the same for the Docklands Stadium in Melbourne, which can accommodate up to 56,000.
But FFA chief executive Ben Buckley believes an agreement can be reached.
"I think all the other codes understand there are substantial benefits to Australia as a nation to host the World Cup and I am pretty confident we will work through those issues and come to an agreement," he said.
"We will discuss with Fifa the possibility of continuing the competitions and we would expect that there are precedents that would say that those competitions can continue to occur during the World Cup."
All bids must be submitted by May 2010 with Fifa scheduled to announce the hosts for 2018 and 2022 in December next year.
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