World Cup 2030

[Silver Fox]

Having seen the madness that was the last Euros being held in multiple countries FIFA have said hold my beer and announced that 2030 is to be held in multiple continents with Spain, Portugal and Morocco being the co-hosts but the opening matches are to be held in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay

[Brogue]

Fcuking idiots

[Sanguine]

Marking the centenary of the first World Cup, apparently.

Even better, FIFA's commitment to continental rotation means that the 2034 tournament will be held in either Asia or Oceania, which makes a Saudi World Cup almost inevitable.

The biggest shamble of the 2030 tournament is that the prize for Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay of hosting one match each is automatic qualification. Presumably/hopefully FIFA will adjust CONMEBOL qualifying accordingly, otherwise you'll just have the entire federation in the tournament automatically.

Quite how they will manage the 'fairness', or lack of it, in presumably asking a couple of big European nations to travel to South America for one match, I don't know.

[Loafer]

[From Despair To Where?]

I get having multiple hosts (ok, maybe not 6); it opens hosting to countries who don't have the infrastructure to do it on their own and the cost is also huge but, FFS, have all the hosts on the same bloody continent and in similar timezones.

[South Coast Royal]

:lol:

Marking the centenary of the first World Cup, apparently.

Even better, FIFA's commitment to continental rotation means that the 2034 tournament will be held in either Asia or Oceania, which makes a Saudi World Cup almost inevitable.

The biggest shamble of the 2030 tournament is that the prize for Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay of hosting one match each is automatic qualification. Presumably/hopefully FIFA will adjust CONMEBOL qualifying accordingly, otherwise you'll just have the entire federation in the tournament automatically.

Quite how they will manage the 'fairness', or lack of it, in presumably asking a couple of big European nations to travel to South America for one match, I don't know.

It doesn't take that much longer to fly from say Spain to Rio than it did from one side of Russia to the other in the World Cup there.
I suppose now we are thinking of it as a true "world" cup in taking place all around the world.
i suspect "fairness" won't come into it.

[Hendo]

I don't have a massive problem with Spain, Portugal and Morocco, yes different continents but practically the same time zone with Morocco being in the same time zone as us. And at least they're in roughly the same area. Flight time from Madrid to Marrakech for example is only 2hrs.

The stuff in South America seems like a bit of a nonsense.

[Stranded]

I don't have a massive problem with Spain, Portugal and Morocco, yes different continents but practically the same time zone with Morocco being in the same time zone as us. And at least they're in roughly the same area. Flight time from Madrid to Marrakech for example is only 2hrs.

The stuff in South America seems like a bit of a nonsense.

Yeah this South America thing is just pointless and will need a lot of fixing of the draw to make it worthwhile.

I know a lot of countries have a lot of their players based in Europe these days but say for example China qualify and are drawn against Uruguay, they will have to find a base in Spain/Portugal, then fly over to Uruguay.

That is about a 12 hour flight and a 4 or 5 hour time difference - they play essentially an away game, then must fly back to play their second game, say against France 3 or 4 days later.

So they will have potentially flown for 24 hours, dealt with 2 5 hour time shifts and have to face an opponent who at worst has had a 2 hour flight to Morocco and a 1 hour time difference.

The other option is of course they base themselves in Uruguay until the game, then fly in, but that puts them at a disadvantage as well as they would then have to get settled into new training/hotel facilities mid-tournament rather than arriving at base a week or so before it starts to acclimitise.

It is a fcuking awful idea.

[Green]

Yes in an increasingly carbon offsetting/aware environment, FIFA in not reading the room shock.

I'm sure they've just done it to "gift" it (receive a bribe) from the Saudis.

[Winston Biscuit]

I don't have a massive problem with Spain, Portugal and Morocco, yes different continents but practically the same time zone with Morocco being in the same time zone as us. And at least they're in roughly the same area. Flight time from Madrid to Marrakech for example is only 2hrs.

The stuff in South America seems like a bit of a nonsense.

The South America part is so that 3 continents are ticked off in one go to help justify giving 2034 to Saudi

[Sutekh]

So will England get the 2066 finals?

[Winston Biscuit]

So will England get the 2066 finals?

split between England, Antarctica & the moon

[Sutekh]

I don't have a massive problem with Spain, Portugal and Morocco, yes different continents but practically the same time zone with Morocco being in the same time zone as us. And at least they're in roughly the same area. Flight time from Madrid to Marrakech for example is only 2hrs.

The stuff in South America seems like a bit of a nonsense.

Yeah this South America thing is just pointless and will need a lot of fixing of the draw to make it worthwhile.

I know a lot of countries have a lot of their players based in Europe these days but say for example China qualify and are drawn against Uruguay, they will have to find a base in Spain/Portugal, then fly over to Uruguay.

That is about a 12 hour flight and a 4 or 5 hour time difference - they play essentially an away game, then must fly back to play their second game, say against France 3 or 4 days later.

So they will have potentially flown for 24 hours, dealt with 2 5 hour time shifts and have to face an opponent who at worst has had a 2 hour flight to Morocco and a 1 hour time difference.

The other option is of course they base themselves in Uruguay until the game, then fly in, but that puts them at a disadvantage as well as they would then have to get settled into new training/hotel facilities mid-tournament rather than arriving at base a week or so before it starts to acclimitise.

It is a fcuking awful idea.

Complete and utter farce but then this is FIFA so no logic, no sense and another case of £££££ so who cares about the integrity of the sport?

If they had brains they'd have awarded it to South America alone and then Europe in 2034 but no that'd mean they can't organise another ****** stupid tournament in Saudi in the winter before 2038 and Saudi and their money might have lost interest by then

[Ascotexgunner]

I don't have a massive problem with Spain, Portugal and Morocco, yes different continents but practically the same time zone with Morocco being in the same time zone as us. And at least they're in roughly the same area. Flight time from Madrid to Marrakech for example is only 2hrs.

The stuff in South America seems like a bit of a nonsense.

Yeah this South America thing is just pointless and will need a lot of fixing of the draw to make it worthwhile.

I know a lot of countries have a lot of their players based in Europe these days but say for example China qualify and are drawn against Uruguay, they will have to find a base in Spain/Portugal, then fly over to Uruguay.

That is about a 12 hour flight and a 4 or 5 hour time difference - they play essentially an away game, then must fly back to play their second game, say against France 3 or 4 days later.

So they will have potentially flown for 24 hours, dealt with 2 5 hour time shifts and have to face an opponent who at worst has had a 2 hour flight to Morocco and a 1 hour time difference.

The other option is of course they base themselves in Uruguay until the game, then fly in, but that puts them at a disadvantage as well as they would then have to get settled into new training/hotel facilities mid-tournament rather than arriving at base a week or so before it starts to acclimitise.

It is a fcuking awful idea.

Complete and utter farce but then this is FIFA so no logic, no sense and another case of £££££ so who cares about the integrity of the sport?

If they had brains they'd have awarded it to South America alone and then Europe in 2034 but no that'd mean they can't organise another ****** stupid tournament in Saudi in the winter before 2038 and Saudi and their money might have lost interest by then

Why take backhanders from one country when you can take them from 6.

[Clyde1998]

The biggest shamble of the 2030 tournament is that the prize for Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay of hosting one match each is automatic qualification. Presumably/hopefully FIFA will adjust CONMEBOL qualifying accordingly, otherwise you'll just have the entire federation in the tournament automatically..

This. Seems completely ridiculous having teams automatically qualify for hosting a single match. UEFA's decision to guarantee two slots for the hosts of Euro 2028, with the automatic slots only coming into play if one of the five hosts fail to qualify through the standard means, seems much more reasonable.

South American qualification seems almost pointless now they've got six qualification spots from a ten team confederation, plus a potential seventh via the intercontinental play-offs. The South American and North American qualifying sections should really be merged together now - I think there's twelve spots guaranteed between the two, plus a potential extra two via the play-offs.

Based on the current Elo ratings, the twelve strongest teams from the two continents are: Argentina; Brazil; Uruguay; Colombia; Ecuador; Mexico; United States; Peru; Venezuela; Canada; Panama; Chile - so it's not even like the Mexicans or Americans would suddenly become unlikely to qualify; nor the less established North American nations. I'm sure the North American sides would end up benefiting from playing more regular matches against the South American sides.

There seems to be much more co-operation between CONMEBOL and CONCACAF in recent years - with North American sides being able to qualify for the 2016 and 2024 Copa America tournaments. It's too much of an long shot to merge their World Cup qualifying sections.

[Sutekh]

The biggest shamble of the 2030 tournament is that the prize for Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay of hosting one match each is automatic qualification. Presumably/hopefully FIFA will adjust CONMEBOL qualifying accordingly, otherwise you'll just have the entire federation in the tournament automatically..

This. Seems completely ridiculous having teams automatically qualify for hosting a single match. UEFA's decision to guarantee two slots for the hosts of Euro 2028, with the automatic slots only coming into play if one of the five hosts fail to qualify through the standard means, seems much more reasonable.

South American qualification seems almost pointless now they've got six qualification spots from a ten team confederation, plus a potential seventh via the intercontinental play-offs. The South American and North American qualifying sections should really be merged together now - I think there's twelve spots guaranteed between the two, plus a potential extra two via the play-offs.

Based on the current Elo ratings, the twelve strongest teams from the two continents are: Argentina; Brazil; Uruguay; Colombia; Ecuador; Mexico; United States; Peru; Venezuela; Canada; Panama; Chile - so it's not even like the Mexicans or Americans would suddenly become unlikely to qualify; nor the less established North American nations. I'm sure the North American sides would end up benefiting from playing more regular matches against the South American sides.

There seems to be much more co-operation between CONMEBOL and CONCACAF in recent years - with North American sides being able to qualify for the 2016 and 2024 Copa America tournaments. It's too much of an long shot to merge their World Cup qualifying sections.

Sounds eminently sensible to me so we can be sure it'll never happen.

[Snowflake Royal]

So when do we think the first world cup will be that FIFA abandon all pretence and just start selling World Cup Finals places to the highest bidder?

[Sutekh]

So when do we think the first world cup will be that FIFA abandon all pretence and just start selling World Cup Finals places to the highest bidder?

Thought 2022 was fairly obvious there was no serious pretence, certainly after the first few months anyway.

A bit like the Olympics, I think it'll eventually be dictated by which countries/FAs can actually afford what is now FIFA's ridiculously bloated cash cow.

[Snowflake Royal]

So when do we think the first world cup will be that FIFA abandon all pretence and just start selling World Cup Finals places to the highest bidder?

Thought 2022 was fairly obvious there was no serious pretence, certainly after the first few months anyway.

A bit like the Olympics, I think it'll eventually be dictated by which countries/FAs can actually afford what is now FIFA's ridiculously bloated cash cow.

I'm not talking selling hosting rights. I'm talking actual places.

[Hendo]

So when do we think the first world cup will be that FIFA abandon all pretence and just start selling World Cup Finals places to the highest bidder?

Thought 2022 was fairly obvious there was no serious pretence, certainly after the first few months anyway.

A bit like the Olympics, I think it'll eventually be dictated by which countries/FAs can actually afford what is now FIFA's ridiculously bloated cash cow.

I'm not talking selling hosting rights. I'm talking actual places.

Errr...

One of the same, are they not?