JAKARTA (Reuters) – The Indonesian Soccer Federation is confident that the country’s government will provide the necessary funding to support their ambitious bid to host the 2022 World Cup.

“We’re waiting for the government to make their decision whether they will back the bid,” Indonesian soccer federation secretary-general Nugraha Besoes told Reuters by telephone on Monday.

“It involves so many ministries and a lot of deep, internal discussions before we can get the guarantees we want, but we’re very optimistic they’ll get behind this.”

The surprise bid pledges to build seven new stadiums with matches to be played in 11 major cities.

“The bid is still going on, we are still very serious about having the World Cup finals here,” Besoes said.

Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, have only qualified for one World Cup in 1938 as the Dutch East Indies.

They will compete with Australia, England, Japan, Netherlands and Belgium, Russia, Spain and Portugal, United States, Qatar and South Korea to host the event, with FIFA announcing the hosts of the 2018 and 2022 editions in December.

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