The way has been cleared for Spain, Portugal and Morocco to organize the 2030 World Cup after Saudi Arabia’s decision to withdraw its candidacy, already advanced by this newspaper when the Moroccans joined the Spanish and Portuguese and Ukraine was relegated due to problems of the president of his federation with justice. 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), has ended up succumbing to a triple alliance that with the inclusion of Morocco divided the African vote. Saudi Arabia intended to pay the infrastructure to the Greeks and Egyptians, but has ended up giving up. This has been clarified by the Saudi Foreign Minister, Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, who in recent hours has contacted his travel companions to express to them that they give up and that they will not present their candidacy in view of the strength of the project led by the Spanish federation together with the Portuguese and Moroccan federations. This triple candidacy is the great favorite against Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and Paraguay. The great card to play for this is the mystique of the celebration of the centenary of the first World Cup held in 1930 in Uruguay, but in organizational terms it is far behind that of Spain, Portugal and Morocco.
A few months ago, the Saudi government clarified its willingness to host the World Cup thanks to a plan to “create quality opportunities and an attractive environment for investment in the sports sector to achieve a sustainable sports economy, raising the level of professionalism and governance administrative and financial in sports clubs, in addition to raising the level of the clubs and developing their infrastructure to provide the best services to sports fans. Among other objectives was to take the Saudi league among the 10 best competitions in the world, which they focused on after the arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo (Al-Nassr). Now Benzema and Kanté (Al-Ittihad) have done it. They wanted to turn these signings into the best claim and World Cup propaganda. In fact, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia and prime minister, Mohamed bin Salmán, announced a national plan for the development of the sport, especially football, and where four of its clubs (Al-Hilal, Al-Nassr, Al-Ittihad and Al-Ahli) will be 75% owned by the public investment fund. Or, what is the same, they will have a mammoth budget to sign. But, you understand, it’s still not enough to win the race to host a World Cup.
After studying the real possibilities in detail, Saudi Arabia has concluded that it will not be able to prevail over the candidacy of Spain-Portugal-Morocco, as it understands that it has a great advantage over them after years of work. Point in favor for the diplomatic strategy of the Spanish Football Federation led by President Luis Rubiales. At the end of 2024 the winner will be known. The headquarters will be designated by a vote of all the federations that make up FIFA (211) in the spring of 2024.
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