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Where will the 2030 World Cup be played?

In the last few hours there has been much talk about the bid of three South American countries, but it's not the only one

Where will the 2030 World Cup be played? In the last few hours there has been much talk about the bid of three South American countries, but it's not the only one

There are still more than ten years and two editions to be played, the winter one that will be staged at the end of 2022 in Qatar and that of 2026 which will be jointly organized by the United States, Mexico and Canada, but it's already almost fill the list of pretenders to the organization of the 2030 World Cup. In recent days, in fact, the President of the Republic of Ecuador has publicly announced his willingness to propose the candidacy, also involving Colombia and Perù. Colombian President Ivan Duque has already accepted the proposal, and now he only expects the Peruvian colleague's confirm to move on to the next stage, and discuss it in more depth. But the candidacy of the three South American countries is not the only one arrived from the American sub-continent, given that already in 2017 there is a strong candidacy from Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay (to which was later added also Chile) to apply together. This is an idea rooted for some time and driven by the desire to host the World Cup in Uruguay a hundred years after the 1930 edition, and for which the Federations have already been working for months.

To these two proposals are added two more, already officially confirmed: in 2018 the one from Morocco arrived, at its sixth attempt after the failures of 1994, 1998, 2006, 2020 and 2026, when it was mocked despite great expectations of being able to finally make it and that it could also use the help of neighboring Algeria and Tunisia or, less likely, Spain and Portugal; the second one only arrived in February 2019 and would see the participation of Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Romania. Although the deadlines are still very far away, the FIFA president Gianni Infantino could already say something already the Counsil meeting scheduled for October regarding the status of the bids and above all the requirements to be respected: the one related to the capacity of the venues for example, given that on the occasion of the 2026 World Cup it was mandatory to use a stadium of at least 80,000 seats for the inaugural match and for the final, a feature that actually no places of the official proposals can guarantee.

Among the discussions still in progress there is the one concerning a sensational all-British candidacy on which England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland talked in recent months. That would not be the only European proposal, given the low interest from Spain and Portugal, which could compete alone "against" Morocco. On the other side of the world, on the other hand, the idea of a proposal by China, which would compete with a simply test bid in view of 2034, or those of Cameroon and Egypt could take place. The almost impossible dream, however, would be that of India. The final response, however, should arrive no earlier than the beginning of 2022.