The International Football Federation (FIFA) announced this Wednesday that it grants the candidacy of Spain, Portugal and Morocco the 2030 World Cup, although the opening match will be in Montevideo (Uruguay), the first match of the Argentine team will be played in Argentina and the initial of the paraguayan, in Paraguay. The granting of these three matches to the South American bid is a nod to the centenary of the first World Cup held in Uruguay in 1930. It will be a World Cup in six countries, which are already qualified for the event due to their status as hosts, and on three continents. Spain already hosted the 1982 World Cup.
“In a divided world, FIFA and football are coming together,” FIFA president Gianni Infantino said in a statement. “It was unanimously agreed to celebrate the centenary of the FIFA World Cup, the first edition of which was played in Uruguay in 1930, in the most appropriate way. As a result, there will be a celebration in South America and three South American countries (Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay) will each host a 2030 FIFA World Cup match. The first of these three matches will, of course, be played in the stadium where it started everything, in the legendary Centenario Stadium in Montevideo, precisely to celebrate the centenary edition of the FIFA World Cup,” Infantino added.
The agreement reached by the candidacy led by Spain and the South American team was voted on and approved by the FIFA council on Wednesday afternoon. This unexpected movement, according to sources familiar with the negotiations, began to take shape as a result of the Rubiales case. The Spanish, Portuguese and Moroccan option was the great favorite to organize the entire event, but the situation took a turn with the scandal that broke out after the former president of the federation gave a non-consensual kiss to Jennifer Hermoso.
The president of the Higher Sports Council himself, Víctor Francos, admitted a month ago that Spain’s situation in terms of organizing the World Cup was no longer the same. The candidacy has had to give up those three matches, although it has managed to ensure that the bulk of the World Cup is played in Spain, Portugal and Morocco. It has not yet been decided how many venues each of the three countries will host. It will be FIFA that decides, but the date has yet to be determined. The venues for the 2026 World Cup, which will be held in the United States, Mexico and Canada, were recently announced.
The first proposal to choose to organize a major football championship came from FIFA and the Royal Spanish Federation (RFEF) in 2018, when it was still chaired by Luis Rubiales. He asked the President of the Government Pedro Sánchez for his support to organize a World Cup in Spain in 2030. Initially, Morocco entered the candidacy, but then fell out and gave way to Portugal. The so-called Iberian candidacy achieved unanimous support from UEFA in exchange for the 2028 Euro Cup going to the United Kingdom. With the support of Europe, Spain and Portugal found themselves with China, South America, and Saudi Arabia as possible rivals.
FIFA did not look favorably on the Asian giant’s application, which did not make its candidacy official. The great threat was always Saudi Arabia, so Rubiales hatched the idea of adding Ukraine in October 2022. Just four months later, faced with the growing threat from the Saudis and the fact that the inclusion of the Ukrainians did not give the expected returns, he became to include Morocco to divide the African vote. Ukraine, at first, was left up in the air. The federation argued that the fact that the president of Ukrainian football, Andriy Pavelko, was being investigated by his country’s justice system was an inconvenience. This newspaper asked FIFA about it and the organization denied that this influenced Ukraine being able to host. The most obvious proof is that Spain will be part of the organization of the 2030 World Cup despite the Rubiales case, although it is true that it has had to give up those three games in South America along with its Portuguese and Moroccan partners. Ukraine has definitely been left out.
The path for Spain, Portugal and Morocco was cleared after Saudi Arabia’s decision to withdraw its candidacy. The Saudi proposal, which was joint with Greece and Egypt to become the first World Cup to be held on three continents at the same time (Asia-Europe-Africa), collapsed. The Saudis were willing to pay for the infrastructure of the Greeks and Egyptians, but they found themselves out of options and opted to try to organize the 2034 World Cup.
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