【World Cup 48 era】2030 World Cup Three continents and six countries Is everyone happy or false unity?
The 2026 North American World Cup, the era of the 48-team World Cup has not yet begun, and the right to host the 2030 World Cup has been officially announced more than a year in advance, and it is held by three continents and six countries. When things go wrong, there will be demons. The era of 48 teams in the World Cup, absurdity and embarrassment, will be more and more.
Reporter Han Bing reported that the right to host the 2030 World Cup was officially announced more than a year in advance! And there are many unprecedented aspects of this cup - this is the first time that FIFA directly determines and officially announces the hosting results before voting for the organizer of the World Cup; This is also the first time that the World Cup has been held on 3 continents, 6 countries, and 6 host teams that directly qualified for the finals; This is also the first time that teams will have to cross continents to compete during the finals...
CONMEBOL President Domingos declared this a happy ending, and FIFA President Gianni Giannino also called the 2030 World Cup, an unprecedented transcontinental joint event, a grand event of solidarity in world football.
But what about the other side of the story?
In fact, the 2030 World Cup is similar to the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan, with absolute "insider trading". FIFA once again forced the sponsor to solve the problem in a cooperative way under the fierce competition of the bid. On the surface, FIFA has found a way to maximize the benefits of the World Cup when the rain and dew are even. But the price has come at the expense of football itself, as was the case with last year's equally unprecedented Winter World Cup.
Infantino still inherits the authoritarian approach of Havelange and Blatter, prioritizing FIFA's own interests and deciding where to host the World Cup. It seems that no one is dissatisfied, but in fact, the World Cup itself, player health, fan experience, tradition, and even carbon reduction and environmental protection are not considered by FIFA.
In the 2030 World Cup bid, there were originally two opponents: the Iberian combination led by Spain and Portugal, and the South American combination led by Argentina and Uruguay. In order to avoid diversion of votes, UEFA let the UK+Ireland combination, which is also interested in bidding, focus on Euro 2028 in advance, and the Spanish-Portuguese combination will focus on the 2030 World Cup. Argentina and Uruguay focused on the emotional concept of "going home" for the centennial World Cup, and in order to improve the success rate of the bid, they pulled Paraguay to join the bid to form the "Southern Cone" bid combination.
Originally, this was a competition between economic strength and football sentiment, and both sides did their best. After Infantino announced that the 2030 World Cup would continue to maintain 48 teams, the Spanish-Portuguese combination first attracted Ukraine as a new bidding partner, and the economically weak "Southern Cone" combination added Chile. But Infantino has his own ideas, and he proposed the "Arab-Israeli peace" joint plan between Israel and Egypt, which has the ambition to raise the political image of the World Cup to a higher level. At the same time, the equally ambitious Saudi Arabia has wooed Egypt and Greece to create the concept of "three civilizations on three continents", pushing the competition for the 2030 World Cup bid to a fever pitch.
The original bid process for the 2030 World Cup was to submit the application by July next year, and the FIFA General Assembly voted on it in December next year. In order to increase the success rate, the Spanish-Portuguese team abandoned Ukraine, which in fact had no capacity to host the tournament, in favor of Morocco, which can canvass votes from the Arab world and Africa.
According to the principle of continental rotation, 2030 should have been Africa's turn, and Saudi Arabia's Asia, which is only 8 years away from the Qatar World Cup, is not eligible to bid. Spain's acting Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez attended the International Economic Forum in New York, met with Portuguese President Fernando Gómez, and met secretly with Infantino, which ultimately decided the fate of the 2030 World Cup.
Confidential revealed that what prompted Infantino to make up his mind was the concessions of CONMEBOL. CONMEBOL president Domingos explicitly admitted that the Southern Cone team could not afford to host the 48-team World Cup due to poor economic conditions. But the centennial of the World Cup must "go home", and cannot lose the sense of historical ritual like the centennial Olympic Games did not come to Athens. As a result, Infantino reached an agreement with CONMEBOL: Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay would each host one opener, plus a special centennial World Cup commemoration ceremony in Montevideo, Uruguay - all in exchange for the "Southern Cone" combination to abandon the bid.
In this way, this unprecedented "three continents and six countries" hosting the World Cup came to light.
Gianni Infantino praised the "three continents and six countries" for hosting the 2030 World Cup, illustrating that "in a divided world, FIFA and football are uniting the world". But in fact, this too sudden forced "peace and mud" hosting program, from the moment it is made public, brings not unity, but more division.
With 48 teams participating and a whopping 104 matches, the 2026 US-Canada-Mexico World Cup has caused widespread doubts about the adaptability of players due to the distance between host countries, time difference, climate and altitude.
The 2030 World Cup is even worse, the game will be held in the north and south hemispheres, winter and summer climates, three continents and six countries, and the problem of player adaptation is more serious. The three South American teams play one opener in their respective countries, and then travel thousands of miles to the northern hemisphere to continue the game. Sudden changes in weather and long-haul flights forced FIFA to change its schedule, giving six teams playing three South American openers more time to rest. But that's hardly fair to the other 42 teams.
It's not just the teams that are affected, but the fans. The Federation of Spanish Football Shareholders and Partners (FASFE) issued a scathing statement condemning FIFA's "three continents and six countries" hosting scheme, forcing tens of thousands of fans to fly thousands of miles to follow the team, greatly increasing the cost of watching the game and the pressure on carbon emissions.
Even within the three countries of Spain, Portugal, the organizers officially announced by FIFA, the battle for the number of matches to host the match has just begun. Portugal lost the right to open and open the World Cup in the Spanish-Portuguese era, while Morocco pressed for more rights to host the tournament, including two semi-finals. There are even new stadiums in Casablanca with a capacity of 93,000 people to compete to host the finals. In the future, the competition between the three countries of Spain, Portugal and Morocco for hosting the competition may intensify.
Just as FIFA forcibly co-hosted the 2002 World Cup by its sworn enemies South Korea and Japan, the 2030 World Cup is also the product of forced co-hosting, and various contradictions have been buried since the beginning of the co-operation. After all, the initial bid for Morocco to join was Spain's political compensation for its opposition to Morocco's bid to host the 2026 World Cup.
FIFA announced that the host of the 2030 World Cup is Western Portugal, but the three countries of Auba have retained the ritual sense of "going home" of the centennial World Cup by hosting single matches and celebration ceremonies. Even more absurd is that the only one that was ignored and abandoned was Chile, which was originally in the "Southern Cone" bid combination, but did not qualify for the opening match and the final round. Chilean officials strongly expressed their protests, but FIFA, immersed in the wave of public opinion about "football uniting the world", could not hear it.