Despite facing challenges from England and USA, Lowy believes that the global football-fest could be heading to Australia.

"This is not a dry run," Lowy told Australia's Daily Telegraph. "This is not for an education, this is not to see if we can mount a bid - we are going for the real thing.

"I don't have a plan B, and I don't have any other expectations than that we will get the nod and win the right to host the 2018 World Cup in Australia."

"I think we'll win it, but there's a lot of hard work we need to do, a lot of discussions and convincing," he said.

"But Australia has a lot of sympathy in the football world for what we have achieved in the past five years.

"We were fortunate that President Blatter came to the Brisbane game (where 50,000 people watched a World Cup qualifier against Iraq).

"He never imagined that a game between Australia and Iraq could generate that kind of interest."