Zurich (AP) — FIFA officially ratified Saudi Arabia as the host nation for the 2034 FIFA World Cup, and confirmed that Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay will be co-hosts in 2030.
The Saudi bid was the only one. Its ratification was met with applause from more than 200 FIFA member federations. They participated remotely in an online meeting organized in Zurich on Wednesday by the sport’s governing body president, Gianni Infantino.
The decision was paired with the approval of the sole bid to host the 2030 World Cup. Spain, Portugal and Morocco will co-host a six-nation project, with Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay each hosting one match.
In total, that tournament will consist of 104 matches.
The South American link will mark the centennial of the first World Cup, held in 1930 in Uruguay.
For 2034, FIFA awarded the wealthy oil kingdom its biggest prize to date following the massive spending on globally visible sports driven by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The decision completes a 15-month candidacy process that was largely opaque, one that Infantino helped steer toward Saudi Arabia without any other candidate in the running, without answering questions, and that, according to human rights groups, could put the lives of migrant workers at risk.
The global soccer governing body and Saudi authorities say that hosting the 2034 tournament could accelerate change, including greater freedoms and rights for women.
The path to Saudi victory was cleared last year when FIFA accepted a plan to stage the World Cup of 2030 across three continents.
A decade of scrutiny over Saudi labor laws and the treatment of workers, largely from South Asia, who are needed to help build and improve 15 stadiums, as well as hotels and transportation networks, will begin ahead of the 104-match tournament.
One stadium is slated to rise about 350 meters tall in Neom — a futuristic city that does not yet exist — and another, bearing the crown prince’s name, will perch atop a 200-meter cliff near the capital Riyadh.
During the bid campaign, FIFA accepted only limited scrutiny of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, a stance that drew broad criticism this year at the United Nations.
Saudi and international rights groups and activists warned FIFA that it has not learned the lessons of the controversial preparations for Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup.
The kingdom plans to spend tens of billions of dollars on World Cup-related projects as part of the crown prince’s broad Vision 2030 program, aimed at modernizing Saudi society and its economy. At the heart of the plan is sports spending by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), which holds about $900 billion and is overseen by the prince. Critics say this amounts to a “sportswashing” of the kingdom’s reputation.
The prince, known as MBS, has built close working ties with Infantino since 2017 — aligning with the organizer of the world’s most-watched sporting event rather than directly challenging the established order as he did with the controversial LIV Golf project.
The outcome for Saudi Arabia and FIFA has been steady progress toward Wednesday’s victory, with limited resistance from football authorities, though some international female players did push back.
That constant flow of Saudi money into international football is expected to rise.
FIFA created a new, higher sponsorship tier for the state-owned oil giant Aramco, and Saudi funds will bankroll the 2025 Club World Cup in the United States, a project personal to Infantino.
CONCACAF, which governs football in North America, Central America and the Caribbean, signed a multi-year deal with the PIF, Saudi stadiums host the Italian and Spanish Super Cups, and nearly 50 FIFA member federations have signed cooperation pacts with their Saudi counterparts.
The outsized spending by PIF-owned Saudi clubs in the past two years to recruit and pay players such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar, Karim Benzema and Sadio Mané has left hundreds of millions of dollars in European football.
That influence could prove pivotal in negotiations over which months the 2034 World Cup will be staged. The November-December window used for Qatar 2022 to avoid extreme heat becomes more complicated that year because Ramadan will run until mid-December, and Riyadh will also host the Olympic Esports Series.
January 2034 could be an option, and likely the best for clubs and European leagues, after the International Olympic Committee said it saw few problems with overlapping with the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, which will start on February 10, 2034. The IOC also has a major commercial agreement with Saudi Arabia to host the new Olympic Esports Games.
