The FIFA council meeting in Zurich on June 24 confirmed that the launch of the 2030 World Cup bid has been postponed and the 2025 Club World Cup will be held in the United States.
The centenary World Cup bid has been postponed
FIFA said the bidding process would be delayed in view of the significance of the 2030 World Cup as a milestone in the centenary World Cup.
The bidding process for this World Cup will be announced at a FIFA council meeting in September or October 2023, followed by the official opening of the bidding process.
The final bid will be announced at the FIFA Congress in the fourth quarter of 2024.
FIFA also announced that the first expanded 32-team Club World Cup will be held in the United States in 2025. The Club World Cup is currently contested by seven champion clubs from all continents and is usually held at the end of each year.
In December 2022, FIFA determined that the Club World Cup to be held in 2025 would be restructured to 32 teams and held every four years thereafter.
At the same meeting, FIFA also confirmed that Indonesia will host the 2023 Men's U17 World Cup, Colombia will host the 2024 Women's U20 World Cup and Dominica will host the 2024 Women's U17 World Cup.
The Saudi team pulled out inadvertently
Saudi Arabia, one of the bidding countries for the 2030 FIFA World Cup, has recently become one of the most popular players in the world soccer world, including Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema. Saudi Arabia's move is also in advance of the bid to host the 2030 World Cup.
As early as 2016, the Saudi government launched the "Vision 2030", its main purpose is to carry out comprehensive and profound social and economic reform, football as the most popular sport in Saudi Arabia, naturally become the focus of the "Vision 2030" development project.
Coincidental, before the Argentine king Messi to 100 million euros endorsement fee was appointed as the Saudi tourism ambassador, that seems to be not much related to football, in fact, according to the French media, Messi and C Luo, are an important part of the "2030 vision", the Saudis are trying to use the halo of the two big stars, Saudi Arabia, along with Egypt and Greece, will bid to host the 2030 World Cup, which, if successful, will be the first time in history that the tournament has been held on three continents.
However, on the 24th, according to the Spanish "Marca" newspaper, Saudi Arabia has informed the two partner countries that it will withdraw from the 2030 World Cup bid.
According to the report, the Spain-Portugal-Morocco bid combination, through diplomatic work, made the Saudi side realize that they could not compete with the West Portuguese and that the 2030 World Cup should be Europe's turn.
Of course, this could be a political quid pro quo, with Saudi Arabia withdrawing this time in exchange for the support of the three countries in their next bid for the World Cup.
In fact, the Saudi-Egyptian-Greek scheme was already facing bankruptcy. Greece, with its poor infrastructure and domestic economic and political crisis, is not in a position to host a tournament like the World Cup, but the Saudis have promised to pay all the costs if Greece is willing to join the bid, under which 75% of the matches would be held in Saudi Arabia.
It is reported that the agreement was negotiated by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and former Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis, but the latter was not re-elected in May this year.
The situation is similar in Egypt, which was the first to announce its withdrawal in April. Although Saudi Arabia's oil dollar offensive is fierce, it has introduced stars from Europe with exaggerated sky-high salaries in an attempt to create a super star league, but the team is careless, and the plan to bid for the World Cup has to be temporarily shelved.
After Saudi Arabia's decision to withdraw, there are currently two candidates: Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay and Chile.
The economic strength of the West Portuguese Mo combination has an advantage, and the four South American countries are focused on the centennial World Cup back to the origin. The final result will be known in the second half of 2024.
