6 Countries, 3 Continents, 1 Dumb Idea

The World Cup will celebrate its centennial in 2030.  That's obviously a huge moment for FIFA.  It also created an interesting discussion over who would host.  The first World Cup was played in Uruguay, and the hosts beat Argentina in the final that year, so it made sense that they would put forth a combined bid that would certainly be a favorite from the outset.  But 2030 is also the first time Europe is allowed to host again under FIFA's continental rotation policy, so you knew there would also be UEFA bid.

Instead of deciding between the South American bid (which eventually added Paraguay) and a bid from UEFA (the Spanish/Portuguese bid that also included Morocco in Africa), FIFA did the most FIFA thing possible.  They picked both!  Yep, only FIFA could come up with the completely nonsensical solution of having a World Cup in six countries on three different continents.  And, not surprisingly, it's only FIFA that thinks this is a good idea.

I get the idea of wanting the opening match to be in Montevideo.  It's the obvious tie-in to the inaugural tournament, which was held entirely within the city.  And, since Uruguay is way too small to host a 48-team World Cup on its own, their co-hosting with Argentina also seemed like a no-brainer.  Paraguay was added to the bid late, presumably because they're building a new National Stadium, but also because that's the location of CONMEBOL headquarters.

Logically, it all made sense.  Argentina being the defending World Cup champions doesn't hurt.  Nor does the fact that Lionel Messi is the biggest name in the sport right now.  Likewise, Diego Suarez is Uruguayan, so that bid had plenty of star power.  Plus, the last South American World Cup was in Brazil in 2014.  CONMEBOL had been gearing up for this bid basically since then, and all signs pointed to South America hosting.

Spain and Portugal, meanwhile, announced their intentions to submit a joint bid in October 2020.  Ukraine was later included as a potential host for some group play matches, while Morocco, which was the only other bidder for 2026 and was going to bid on its own anyway, teamed up with Spain and Portugal instead in March.  Ukraine was eventually dropped, leaving the three Iberian countries.  Even though Morocco's on a different continent, it was still a compact bid since you can literally see both Spain and Portugal from the northern tip of Morocco!

Morocco, of course, had the best World Cup performance ever by an African country last year, so including them was a prudent move.  Especially since they're planning on building a 93,000-seat stadium in Casablanca.  The Moroccans would like to see the final played in Casablanca, although it seems more likely the final will be in Spain, either in Madrid or at Camp Nou in Barcelona, which is being expanded to nearly 100,000 seats.

FIFA obviously preferred the Spain/Portugal/Morocco bid.  However, they didn't want to leave Uruguay, Argentina & Paraguay out in the cold, especially because of the anniversary.  So, they came up with a compromise.  The three South American countries will host one game each (they're building a 60,000-seat stadium in Asuncion for one game?!), while the majority of the tournament will be in the Iberian trio.  The host cities and how many games are in each country are still to be determined.

It'll be a while until they announce the schedule (they haven't even finalized the 2026 World Cup schedule yet!), but we do know that the first three games will be played in Montevideo, Buenos Aires and Asuncion.  Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay and their opponents then need to travel across the Atlantic for the remainder of the tournament.  Talk about being put at an extreme disadvantage!

All six nations will be given automatic berths, leaving only 42 spots available for qualifiers.  More significantly, though, FIFA is counting this as all three continents' turn in the hosting rotation.  This is important because, after hosting a World Cup, a continent is ineligible for the next two.  So, with North America hosting in 2026, that leaves just Asia and Oceania eligible for 2034.  And, realistically, only Asia since New Zealand is the only country in Oceania capable of hosting, and they'd likely need to co-host with Australia just like they did at this summer's Women's World Cup.

That's something the skeptics were quick to jump on.  Saudi Arabia has already announced its intention to bid for 2034.  Australia, which just hosted the Women's World Cup and is hosting the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane (as well as the 2027 Rugby World Cup), has indicated an interest, too, likely another co-hosting effort with New Zealand.  But the Asian Football Confederation's stated preference is Saudi Arabia.  Which is exactly what FIFA wants.

If there's one thing that's certain about FIFA, it's that they're never gonna pass up an opportunity to make even more money.  They don't care where that money comes from, either.  That's why they went to Qatar and, even after all of the problems with that World Cup, they seem poised to do it again.  Saudi Arabia's got plenty of money, and FIFA's more than willing to let them spend some of it.

Just think about some of the other ways the Saudis have flaunted their wealth in the last few years alone.  They started and fully funded LIV Golf, luring some of the top golfers away from the PGA Tour with multimillion dollar salaries.  It's not just golfers, either.  Now they're luring top soccer players, too.  Cristiano Ronaldo was the first to sign with a Saudi club, and he started an exodus from the top European leagues to Saudi Arabia.  Like their neighbors in Qatar, the Saudis were obviously thinking bigger.  They wanted a World Cup.

We really should've seen this coming when the Saudi prince was spotted palling around with Gianni Infantino at the Women's World Cup.  That's what this is really all about.  Maybe FIFA actually couldn't decide between the Iberian and CONMEBOL bids.  And I do believe they wanted to honor the legacy of the World Cup centennial in some way.  Neither of those is the reason why they went with this six-country/three-continent compromise, though.  It's because they want 2034 to be in Saudi Arabia.

Regardless of the reasoning, however, FIFA's moving ahead with this ridiculous plan for 2030.  Maybe it'll work out.  After all, UEFA pulled off the pan-continental Euro in 2021.  But there's a lot of risk and they've opened themselves up to a ton of criticism that's completely justified.  So, really, it's just another example of FIFA being FIFA.