World Cup 2030 in Spain-Portugal-Morocco, in 2034 in Saudi Arabia

It is now official: Saudi Arabia will host the 2034 World Cup. This was announced by FIFA at a congress in Zurich attended by more than 200 federations. Saudi Arabia, the sole candidate for the 2034 edition, will be the first country to organise the 48-team World Cup alone, with 104 matches scheduled. The Saudi royal family is intent on spending tens of billions of dollars on World Cup-related projects as part of a larger project, 'Vision 2030', which aims to modernise Saudi society and the economy. The period in which the event will be organised is still uncertain: excluding the summer window because of the high temperatures, it is also complicated to imagine the November-December slot, used by Qatar in 2022, because of Ramadan and the contemporaneity with the Asian multi-sports Games scheduled in Riyadh. A World Cup in January 2034, the preferred window for European clubs, is possible, despite the coincidence of the Winter Olympics scheduled to take place in Salt Lake City from 2 February.

In addition to awarding the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia, FIFA also formalised the 2030 World Cup to Spain, Portugal and Morocco during today's Congress held by videoconference in Zurich, in a project that will also involve South America, with Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina hosting the first three of the 104 scheduled matches. It will be the first tournament in history to take place on three different continents. The link with South America is a tribute to the first World Cup, which took place in 1930 in Uruguay: the Centenario in Montevideo will host the first challenge of the event, which will then go on to Spain, Portugal and Morocco.