By Tim Vickery BBC Sport Online

Last week the Peruvian Football Association put forward one of the craziest proposals in the history of the World Cup.

They want to host the tournament in 2014 - together with Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela.

The idea is a non-starter - even assuming that the social and political problems in the region can be solved in the next decade.

Fresh from the organisational headaches of this year's tournament in Japan and South Korea, Fifa is now frowning on joint bids.

So a World Cup held across five countries is clearly a pipe dream.

Brazil's Ronaldo was top scorer at the 2002 World Cup

Then there is the question of qualifying. South America's current allocation is four World Cup slots.

Presumably all five hosts would merit an automatic place.

And the rest of the continent - including all the traditional powers - would also want to be there.

A World Cup with, say, eight of South America's 10 countries is inconceivable.

The Peruvian proposal, then, stands no chance of being adopted.

But it is a response to a legitimate concern.

South America hosted the first World Cup, and staged four of the first 10 tournaments.

But now the competition has been expanded to include 32 teams, the circus has become too big for most of the continent.

Earlier this year, Japan and South Korea used a total of 20 cities to host Asia's first World Cup - much more than was strictly necessary.

Four years earlier, for example, France used 10 stadiums in nine different cities.

It is hard to see how it could be done with any less.

It is here that the economic history of South America wields its influence.

The continent's traditional role has been to export raw materials and import manufactured goods.

The result - a highly developed port and an undeveloped hinterland.

The consequence in World Cup terms - a dearth of cities to stage the tournament.

Argentina was South America's last host.

Argentina fans would welcome the World Cup

But while it could cope with 16 teams, 32 would be too much - even if the economy gets back on its feet.

There is simply not enough outside Buenos Aires.

Argentina had to scrape the barrel to find six cities to host last year's World Youth Cup.

Hosts in 1962, Chile have been pushing to stage the World Cup together with Argentina.

But joint bids are out of favour, and anyway Argentina appear to recognise that Brazil have priority, as the five times champions have not had the tournament since 1950.

Indeed, Brazil currently seems to be South America's only hope.

Theoretically, at least, Colombia could be an alternative.

It is one of the continent's least centralised countries, and used seven cities staging last year's Copa America.

But huge progress would have to be made in terms of political stability before Colombia could become a viable contender.

Which leaves Brazil - which has plenty of problems of its own, but possesses the cities, the stadiums and the time to get things ready before 2014, the earliest possible date for the return of the World Cup to South America.