The International Football Federation (FIFA) announced Wednesday, October 4, in a press release that the 2030 edition of the World Cup would be jointly organized by Morocco, Spain and Portugal.
An agreement between the European, African and South American confederations also provides that three meetings will take place in Argentina (in Buenos Aires), in Uruguay (in Montevideo) and in Paraguay (in Asuncion) to mark the centenary of the first edition organized in Uruguay in 1930. The twenty-fourth edition of the World Cup will therefore be held on three continents and six countries, a first.
The football body has yet to validate the technical criteria and will officially validate this decision at the end of 2024, but the “unanimous” approval of this file, the sole candidate, by the FIFA council, leaves no doubt.
The announcement promises a complex political and logistical setup and numerous questions around the environmental impact of major sporting events, shortly after the organization in Qatar of a World Cup which had raised many questions.
End of the rivalry between the two favorites
Wednesday’s announcement puts an end to the announced rivalry between two favorites, a joint candidacy from Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and Paraguay, and a European ticket long led by Spain and Portugal. A year ago, with the support of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), the latter two countries included Ukraine in their dossier, ensuring that they wanted to launch “a message of solidarity and hope” and pay tribute to “the tenacity and resilience” of a country occupied by the Russian army since February 2022.
But this highly political team has not been confirmed since and Morocco, five unsuccessful candidates to host the tournament, entered the dance in mid-March, without it being specified what would happen to Ukraine.
The agreement between UEFA and its African (CAF) and South American (Conmebol) counterparts ratifies both the withdrawal of Ukraine and that of the initial Argentina-Chile-Uruguay-Paraguay project, in exchange for a concession major symbolism.
According to FIFA, a “centenary ceremony” will indeed be held “at the stadium where it all began”, in Montevideo, at the time when the event brought together thirteen teams in the same host city – compared to thirty-two during the World Cup. 2022 in Qatar and forty-eight from the 2026 edition in the United States, Canada and Mexico.