Tellia 2025 FMF World Cup bid
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On 27 November 2024, Tellia announced its desire to be granted the hosting rights to the 2025 FMF World Cup, the fifteenth edition of the FMF's premier international competition, the FMF World Cup. In doing so, Tellia became the first nation to submit an official bid to stage the competition.
The bid, which was tabled with the blessings of President Honoré di Scogli, set forward a list of ten stadiums which would be used for the tournament's matches, if successful. The bid matched the minimum recommendation of ten through a combination of established football venues, as utilised regularly by club teams competing in the Tellian Serie A and Serie B, and a newly-announced "national colosseum" project designed to establish a state-of-the-art multisport stadium in the former-planned capital of Metta, on the outskirts of the actual capital Romero. If successful, and once completed, the Colosseo Nazionale would become the largest venue in the nation.
Background
Neither Tellia nor its predecessor state of Gaia has ever previously hosted the FMF World Cup, though the nation's association with the competition is a storied one. As one of the founding teams of the FMF, Gaia participated in the inaugural 2006 FMF World Cup and reached the final before losing to Beaugium. Ever since, Gaia and subsequently Tellia has established itself a force in the tournament, with three further appearances in the final, including two victories in 2012 and 2017 to become part of a very exclusive list of national football teams to have been crowned world champions on more than one occasion. Besides Beaugium, which does not exist on Micras anymore, Tellia is the only existing World Cup winning nation yet to host the competition; previous bids for 2007 (as Gaia) and 2011 were unsuccessful. Excluding one-off finals, such as the WMFA Champions' League, Tellia has only ever hosted one senior tournament, the 2014 Benacia Cup, staged over a decade before their 2025 bid was submitted.
Within the FMF, Tellia falls under the regional jurisdiction of the WMFA, which oversees the general area of the continent of Benacia, with members also being located on the Fifth Isle, Feanoria and the Madison Isles throughout history. In part due to the hosting rotation policy adopted by the FMF upon its change to a biennial World Cup schedule—away from its original annual staging—in 2015, no WMFA nation has been granted hosting rights since Craitland for the 2015 FMF World Cup, the first to see twenty sides participate and which would mark a decade-long intermission by the time the 2025 tournament would be underway. Additionally, Benacia itself had not seen an FMF World Cup finals match played on its shores since the 2011 FMF World Cup, in Shireroth, all of which were noted by the Tellian bidding delegation to establish the argument that ending such statistical runs is overdue.
Venues
The bid included ten stadiums, nine of which were pre-existing and with no plans of expansion ahead of the tournament. The permanent tenants of most of these were club teams with long-standing experience of playing in the Tellian top-flight league and even in international Champions' League competitions, the latter of which means an established undertaking of major matchday procedures akin to those that would be needed for World Cup finals fixtures. All of these stadiums met or exceeded the minimal capacity requirements for group stage hosting, with two also being potential final match venues.
The tenth stadium listed was unconstructed at the time—a not-uncommon situation during bidding processes, with nations often investing in new showpiece venues to improve their chances of winning hosting rights—and was the largest by seating capacity, with expectations being that it would host either the opening match or final, or both, should the bid come to fruition. This stadium, tagged the Colosseo Nazionale, has been designed to become Tellia's new national arena following the World Cup, with expectations of it hosting many other sports' cup finals, Tellian representative matches, concerts and displays.
The bid's listed stadiums are as follows, organised by largest to smallest seating capacity by default:
| Stadium | Location | Capacity | Image |
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| Colosseo Nazionale | Metta | 70,000 | 
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| Stadio di Romero | Romero | 60,000 | 
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| Stadio San Felice | Fiorecittà | 60,000 | 
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| Stadio Henzelli | Savona | 48,000 | 
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| Stadio Papa Giovanni Paolo II | Vecchiavo | 42,000 | 
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| DaeZoom Arena | Rossavro | 40,000 | 
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| Stadio Commemorativo Ebreo | Vladimizrakh | 35,000 | 
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| Stadio Tellia del Nord | Scoglitto | 32,000 | 
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| Stadio di Astrumstra Regionale | Sogrado | 30,000 | 
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| Stadio di Ocula | Ocula | 30,000 | 
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Ticketing
As has become a regular fixture in the ticketing of international FMF tournaments, Tellia committed itself to offering a set number of fans of each competing nation a mass-ticket which would guarantee entry to all of their chosen team's group stage matches as well as enabling a considerable discount on the fares of the public transport required between the venues used.
To try and ensure matches would be well attended by both visiting fans and locals, further tickets will be sold via ballots, with multiple phases being implemented to allow for priority to fans of the teams involved for a dedicated percentage of each stadium's capacity. For local fans, initial ballots will prioritise fans living inside a predetermined catchment area of the stadium, with the intention of ensuring capacity crowds whilst reducing the potential amount of vehicular traffic on a matchday. Stringent measures were pledged to quash hoarding, touting and counterfeiting of tickets once sales would begin.
Referring to the nation's well-known passionate stadium atmospheres, the Tellian bid delegation also emphasised the importance of fan attendance, noting that ticket distribution to corporate partners of the tournament would be kept to a minimum and reserved for only certain areas of the stadiums included in the bid.
Logistics
Since the Kalirion Fracture, Tellia proper has been a contiguous tract of land in southern Benacia, following on from a number of years surviving as a collective of quasi-city states enclaved by other nations. The nation retains one exclave, surrounding the city of Mamehblinij, governed as the autonomous Merenolitovina, which holds separate FMF membership and therefore has no stadiums included in the bid. As a result, all internal travel and transport for the tournament would be able to be undertaken without the need for any foreign permission or agreements.
While a relatively small nation in relation to others on the continent, Tellia's elongated shape and two northern panhandles mean that road transport is an inadequate option for longer journeys compared to the rail network and flights. Southern Tellia's highways are, however, well maintained between population centres, where the vast majority of the tournament's matches would be held, so these would likely be used for logistical purposes for the tournament. Conversely, the northerly stretches are of poor quality across rural areas, meaning that locations such as Fiorecittà and Scoglitto would have increased rail services scheduled around the tournament's hosting to accommodate an expected increase of people wanting to travel to them.
Internal flights are anticipated to need additional services as well, with inbound external flights to the nation's host cities, all of which are served by at least a minor airport, certainly required to be scheduled from a increased amount of different nations depending on which teams qualify and whether the bid wins the hosting rights.
As Tellia's position within the Xäiville Convention allows for free movement between it and eight other nations, during any potential hosting of the tournament there may need to be extra limitations temporarily enacted due to the anticipated influx of visitors to Tellia whom may not be permitted into the other members' lands.
Outcome and aftermath
Following the announcement of the initial Tellian bid to host, three other bids were submitted episodically prior to the deadline. The next day, the AEFA's Daau entered its official request to host, with Çakaristan, also of the AEFA, bidding two days later again. The fourth overall bid was submitted on 8 December by East Zimia and the Wallis Islands, a CTFA nation which had only successfully applied for membership earlier in the same year. The Tellian delegation were supportive of seeing strong competition to Tellia's bid, noting that Daau's passion for football is arguably unmatched on its home continent of Eura, while acknowledging the Çakari bid's strength lay in its portfolio of recently-built, high-capacity venues. With Tellia's bid being vocal about desiring to return the FMF World Cup to Benacia after a prolonged hiatus, the East Zimian and Wallisian bid was praised for its potential to see a first ever World Cup hosted on Corum, in a similar vein to Daau's with Eura, despite the nation's nascent FMF affiliation.
