US President Barack Obama is getting right behind the nation's 2018 World Cup bid. The US, having been previously considered an outsider, played something of a trump card by securing Obama's active involvement.

The American president has written to Sepp Blatter, the FIFA president, expressing his enthusiasm for the tournament coming to the States.

"As a child, I played soccer on a dirt road in Jakarta, and the game brought the children of my neighbourhood together," he wrote. "As a father, I saw that same spirit of unity alive on the fields and sidelines of my own daughters' soccer games in Chicago."