It’s official, well almost. Fifa has announced the location for the 2030 (centenary) World Cup. And the winner is… all over the place. In an extraordinary departure the tournament will be played in three continents with matches in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Spain, Portugal and Morocco. The decision, which will surely be rubber stamped at next year’s congress has been hailed by Fifa as ‘unit[ing] the world in a unique global celebration’ and by Football Supporters Europe (a body officially recognised by Uefa) as ‘Horrendous for supporters’ and ‘The end of the World Cup as we know it.’
It is tempting to speculate if Fifa is on a mission to destroy the world’s most popular and successful sporting tournament. Do its delegates meet in secret plotting how the event can be wrecked, through inappropriate hosting decisions, constant increases in size unjustified by footballing quality or demand, and scheduling seemingly designed to maximally inconvenience clubs and the fans?
The problems with the 2030 plan are so numerous and serious that it is hard to know where to start. The tournament will be a sprawling mess with absolutely no centre, and thus no distinctive national character to give the whole thing a theme or flavour. The vast distances involved will present teams facing transcontinental fixtures with significant problems with fatigue and jet lag. The wretched fans might as well give up now on any realistic prospect of watching their team from start to finish as the cost and logistical challenge will likely prove overwhelming.
So why do it? What’s really going on? Gianni Infantino has rejoiced in playing the opening game of the tournament in Uruguay at ‘the stadium where it all began, Montevideo’s mythical Estádio Centenário’ which is not only illiterate (the stadium is not mythical Gianni, I know, I’ve been there) but almost certainly cynically disingenuous. Could it possibly be that the brief South American overture is less a homage to the 1930 tournament and more a ruse that allows Fifa to accelerate the confederation rotation cycle and offer the 2034 tournament to Asia? The three South American ‘hosts’ (of one game) will be compensated with a guaranteed slot at the 2030 tournament. Well, it beats brown envelopes, I suppose.
Fifa have already announced that they are fast-tracking preparations for the 2034 tournament and Saudi Arabia have been quick off the mark by indicating they will bid. They will likely face a rival in Australia, and possibly China, but Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, president of the Asian Football Confederation, has said that ‘The entire Asian football family will stand united in support of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s momentous initiative’. Infantino has been spotted out and about with MBS and they are evidently buddies. I could be wrong, but I just have a hunch the Saudis may be in with a decent chance. Football Supporters Europe put it more bluntly, stating that the 2030 shenanigans ‘rolls out the red carpet to a host for 2034 with an appalling human rights record’.
But wildly inappropriate hosting is just one of the ways Fifa is destroying the World Cup. The revenue-gouging bloated incubus 48-team format means the generally reasonably exciting qualification stage will be something between a stroll and a canter for the world’s top teams and a non-event for the fans. There will end up being over 100 games to bore us all into a delirious stupor featuring some God-awful teams that shouldn’t be anywhere near a World Cup.
It also saddles the tournament with an unworkable first round where 32 out of the 48 will advance, meaning one win will probably do it. The format also breaks the seven-game barrier which has endured for the tournament’s entire history. The winners in 2026 and thereafter will need to play eight games, including five knock out matches, which, given football’s propensity for upsets in one off high stakes games, significantly reduces the chances of the best team emerging triumphant. One stubborn stonewalling opponent and a bit of bad luck in the pens and you’re out. Think how close Argentina came to blowing it last year.
What looks likely now is that historic footballing nations with strong traditions and established infrastructure will never again be allowed to host the World Cup alone. Joint ventures, which offer so much more scope for patronage and power plays, are the order of the day, punctuated by one-off tournaments in deeply unappealing petro-states whose rulers are looking to wash their reputations and advance their various agendas.
For the humble fans of international football, today’s announcement with all its justificatory progressive pabulum just twists an already deeply embedded knife. We’ve swallowed our principals, suppressed our nausea, and kept watching as the tournament we loved became a globetrotting Ponzi scheme and gilded pawn in a game of global power politics. But for how much longer? The system can only take so much abuse. Are we approaching the endgame?
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