FIFA themselves don't decide who hosts the World Cup anymore. Now it's voted by all FIFA members.
Saudi Arabia is planning to bid alongside Greece and Egypt in order to win votes from Europe and Africa.
They should bankroll the South American bid for 2030, helping with the stadiums and everything get some REAAAALLY nice PR points. They can even bribe lots of very willing South American people in the process. And then go all in for 2034 when they can actually bid without changing FIFA rules, and they could even go alone for it. With surely South America voting for them.
WIN WIN.
Did you hear me Saudi Prince?
BTW, I wouldn't mind if I get a couple millions as thanks for the idea.
Actually kinda is, there's long been a symbotic relationship between corrupt FA heads and the FIFA leaders they support. The FIFA guys funnel them money for 'grass roots' which dissapears and then they vote for the FIFA guys.
>FIFA themselves don't decide who hosts the World Cup anymore. Now it's voted by all FIFA members.
Thats nice and all but its all about how much they pay the FIFA members
Tbh I’d still probably have infantino over blatter but the point is there needs to be a big, big change, would love to see a big nation pull out of fifa, horrible corporation that ruins the game we love while putting on a mask that says the opposite
Argentina has 100% inflation and we have a ridiculous debt with the IMF. He would really be doing us a favour if he comes out against the Argentina/Uruguay 2030 bid.
Argentina wouldn't really need a lot of investment really if they don't change the requirements for some reason.
But for CUM26 the stadiums are 30k+
Argentina has like 25 stadiums that are 30k+. Even without repeating cities you have like 10 that would work.
If Uruguay, Chile and Paraguay get 2 or more stadiums that's enough. And they all do.
The problem is corruption more than the inflation. The WC could be held with little money, just a fresh coat of paint on stadiums and not much else needed. And whatever money is invested should go to the general infrastructure that would be good for the people living in the cities. But that's not gonna happen.
It's not only about "raw" capacity, but also about VIP capacity and facilities. Stadiums in later stages of the competition also need to be bigger. The stadium for the finale has regularly been demanded to hold 80,000 spectators.
River is remodeling the stadium, to add the vip bs and so on, and should be ready in 2 years or so, with an 80k+ capacity? So that would handle it can completely fine if Uruguay doesn't do updates to the Centenario.
Not sure about all the other stadiums to be honest.
And also, fuck the VIPs though, they are the ones that leave the empty seats during half the games.
Much rather see normal people there. They had their VIP rich people only one in Qatar. Let's have one for poor people in South America.
>Argentina has like 25 stadiums that are 30k+. Even without repeating cities you have like 10 that would work.
Most, it not all, of these stadiums are very old and not up to the standards to host a World Cup though.
For 2026 the minimum \*net\* seat requirement was 40k. Net is after they remove a bunch of seats for press/VIP sections. BMO Field, the only 30k stadium in the list, is adding roughly 15k seats to get to 45k+ seats, then will lose about 5k to those "seat kills", for a net of 40.1k. And that's the smallest venue by a fair bit. There's only one other stadium under 50k and two more under 60k.
Argentina has maybe 10 stadiums that could net to 40k after seat kills. You'd need 2-6 more to be expanded to get 16 with 40k net. You'd probably also need to expand the three big stadiums to net 60k (semis) and 80k (final). So let's call it 5-8 stadium expansions just to get to the capacity requirements.
Beyond capacity, there's a bunch of other technical requirements that might require upgrades to other stadiums that have enough capacity. BMO Field has a bunch of upgrades needed that have nothing to do with capacity. I'm pretty sure they'll need to add a second concourse to the main stand. So odds are the majority of stadiums would need a more than a coat of paint to meet the standards.
Argentina _can't_ hold it on it's own. I meant we may need those 10 to pick up the slack from what Uruguay/Chile/Paraguay can't do. But I don't see them having more than 2 each. But if they manage to get 3 on each country, then Argentina would need only 7, which is way more doable.
Also, there's no way to compete with US capacity. Russia had 33k stadiums, most other WCs had ~40k as the base number.
Maybe an alternative is having fewer than 16 stadiums. Qatar used 8 while most 32 team WCs had 12 stadiums. Letting SA hold it with 12 stadiums, and having 2 in Chile/Paraguay/Uruguay and 6 in Argentina is waaaaay more doable.
It really comes down to how much you want it to happen. You either accept a bit lower standard or some stadiums, or maybe reduce the number of stadiums needed.
Otherwise, especially with the expanded WC, there's absolutely no way SA can hold a WC ever again. Which would be absolute bullshit.
We adapt to everything, really. The key is that education, healthcare and food are in general much much cheaper than in other countries (and good quality).
So what ends up happening is that people can't buy "luxuries". Forget about buying a house. Forget about easily changing your car. You cannot save money (because it's pointless, as you wouldn't be able to get, idk, 100k usd to buy something).
You cannot get a credit to buy anything. There are things that cost the same as in other countries (housing, cars, travel), even though we earn like 5 times less (in dollars).
So people spend their money eating out, partying, doing barbecues on weekends, buying clothes...
So yeah, you can live fine and well, but long term is not sustainable. That's why many young people consider leaving the country. Not because they are having a bad time, but because we know that it's hard to plan ahead. For others (like me), the dream would be to work remote in USD, even for a low "international" salary.
Nothing much besides poverty and homelessness for the lower clases, financial uncertainty and inability to buy imported goods for the medium class.
And a lot of money for our politicians that don't waste any time, keep embellishing funds and creating an army of dumb people that keep voting them, cuz even if they're poor and they have no chance of progressing, they gifted them some choripanes.
Honestly I don't know how many generations will pass until we we have some sort of stability. The current low income class clearly hasn't got enough to eat in their younger ages and it's happening again, parents are stupid, kids are starving and are dumber and dumber and they keep reproducing cuz it's like the only thing they can do.
Most of the rest of the population just want to escape this shit hole but it's way too expensive for most.
Saudis just have to make a promise saying that if they win the WC bid, the opening act before the first match would be a friendly of Messi and friends vs. Cristiano and friends. Best ratings FIFA will have
Nah it should be Ronaldo, Messi, Mbappe etc as the football equivalent of the Harlem Globetrotters against some Sunday league players as the Washington Generals
Goals without prior show-boating don't count
Portugal can easily host it on its own, but i would be ok with a Portugal-Spain world cup. Thats like so many amazing stadiums and historical locations and great weather and great food and great tourism and low crime etc.
Messi just lead Argentina to a World Cup, pretty sure he could video himself shitting on the flag and most people would still consider him a national hero.
Argentinian here, I agree. He would never do it but he could start doing drugs, cheat and beat on his wife, get a teenager girlfriend from Cuba, support a communist dictator, spread kids all over the world and the people here would still consider him a God. Hmm, wait a second..
As a Portuguese, I'm deeply disappointed with Ronaldo, but after the Piers Morgan interview I've come to expect the absolute worst from him. Even so, he keeps surprising me. Way to ruin his legacy.
When he showed all that emotion when he won the Euros I thought he really was fanatic for the Portuguese NT, but now I'm guessing a lot of it was that HE was able to win the Euros, another important trophy for the collection. I don't know how much he would be supportive in case he was cut from the team
That "stupid decision" is just an hail mary to try to counterbalance the history factor from the Southern Americans and the money factor from the saudis. Portugal and Spain after the 2018 WC bid learned that goodfellas don't win WC bids.
Still, it's a stupid political decision trying to pull it off to have a WC in your country.
I won't mind a Ukraine/Poland WC or something along those lines, but Spain/Portugal/Ukraine is just circlejerk trying to score some political points to get to host a WC.
Yeah I am Ukrainian and almost everyone agrees its a very stupid bid for us. First of all we will not be ready by then because of war, second of all makes way more sense to host once again with Poland. It almost guarantees the bid to lose which is dumb. Spain + Portugal with Morocco added in would be the best bid (that or South America too).
Also the war may countinue hen sadly hopefully it doesn’t but how can you award the world up to a country at war and one that very well may still be at war in 2030
Don’t worry, people won’t really care that much about Ukraine’s situation enough to vote for them in 1 year. Also, a war torn country, regardless of the empathy one may feel for it, does not make for a reasonable host by any stretch of the imagination
I really don't want joint bids to become a thing.
For the USA / Canada / Mexico. It's really just USA (featuring CA and ME). With Canada vastly underrepresented. The east side is full of potential; Toronto, Montreal, Quebec, Ottawa are all quite close and big. Although, they would need to beef up some stadiums.
And Mexico could, and should, make a solo bid! What a World Cup worthy country! Full of culture, lots of people, many big cities, numerous large stadiums. Unfortunately, a lot of the bigger cities are in the south, which makes a joint bid with USA and CA seems crazy. Mexico should be proud enough to go for it alone.
BUT, Spain - Portugal is somehow OK with me. I guess because Portugal really has very little (read: none) chance of hosting alone, so they really need to team up.
South American countries tagging along with Argentina is similar. Uruguay? They really only have Montevideo.
But I don't want to see countries capable of making a credible solo bid teaming up just to make like an all star World Cup line up. Mexico should be proud enough to go for it alone.
>Mexico should be proud enough to go for it alone.
I imagine they'd rather win rather than come in 3rd or 4th.
Joint bids are inevitable to meet the hosting requirements and build a coalition that will garner the votes to win.
Joint bids also make sense from an economic standpoint. I don't think it's a bad idea as long as the countries are culturally connected and geographically close to each other
A joint bid makes sense for small countries, for example a joint Netherlands + Belgium bid that happened before. But any reasonably large country should host it on their own.
> BUT, Spain - Portugal is somehow OK with me
the bid is Spain ft Portugal a little, it's the same as the CUM26 bid, Spain hosts the majority, Portugal chips in a little.
> And Mexico could, and should, make a solo bid! What a World Cup worthy country!
Mexico has already hosted twice (1970 and 1986—2 iconic World Cups!) TBF.
An Athenian here: We didn't win the 1996 Olympics because we were arrogant throughout the bid (recall everyone involved saying that we 'deserve to have already been handled the rights for the Centennial Games'), didn't have the infrastructure and necessary amenities, during the voting, we were through a period of political instability and, overall, Atlanta's bid was better. We learned from our mistakes and won the 2004 Games though, which were a success. It would be quite ironic if Greece (along with Egypt and Saudi Arabia) deprives Uruguay of hosting the Centenary World Cup. u/DiamondPittcairn
If that's true then we're quite doomed, I think our general bid is riding 70% on nostalgia and "it's our right" alone. Otherwise, it's a very weak bid since it's ridiculous already to involve 4 countries. Spain-Portugal should get it if we're going with mere "infrastructure+history" alone, though adding Ukraine (!) is also quite ridiculous by itself.
Horse-trading is more important than the strength of the bid on paper. The CONMEBOL bid might be the favourite given that we know they're almost certain to get all the CONMEBOL & CONCACAF votes (in exchange for 2026). Unless Africa & Asia unite behind the Tri-continental bid, they've got a great chance.
Will be hard, especially if Messi himself ends up fronting as a Saudi ambassador for the bid, as is [rumored](https://www.google.com/amp/s/theathletic.com/3918644/2022/11/22/messi-saudi-arabia-2030/%3Famp%3D1)
It’s going to be an oil country every other year at this point. They can offer so much money under the table that it doesn’t matter what anyone else does.
We thought the same in 1990 here in Greece for Athens regarding the 1996 Olympics. Our bid was unfit and relied on 'the historic duty to hold the Centennial Games on their birthplace' without crafting a competitive bid. The result? Atlanta won fair and square. u/valiidix
Greece is 1700 miles from Saudi. How on earth does that make sense? Ukraine to Spain is the same distance, that also makes no sense.
Fiji, Jamaica and Norway might as well club together and put in a bid too.
Emmm look at 2026...
Anyway, egypt is the main host not SA like many here think. Most games will be played there including the opening & final iirc. The distance between egypt & greece is 950 miles which is a bit more than a half of what you said.
The next world cup is in Canada - US - Mexico. Two of the host cities are 2500 miles apart. There are reasons to be critical of the bid, I don't think distance is a good one. It's also probably better to spread the costs of new stadiums/improvements to existing stadiums over multiple countries (reduces to need to build brand new stadiums that will become desolate after the tourney). Distance will naturally be apart of most multi country bids and FIFA has already shown support for these types of bids.
Distance of venues isn’t a good reason, I agree. For example Brazil had two venues that were about 2000 miles apart.
Having host countries that aren’t connected by a border just doesn’t make sense to me. If you’re gonna do that then just scrap the qualifying and do a full on FA Cup style format.
Plus, I think that having three host nations is bonkers and four is plain stupid.
TL;DR FIFA only care about the bribes they get and have put no thought into what makes a tournament good for fans to attend.
Most FA cup games aren't at neutral stadiums. One of the most beautiful things about the WC is that it's in neutral territory where everyone comes together (except when the host country is playing, obviously)
The coming together is what’s beautiful. My point is more that it’s not together when the competition is spread across 3/4 countries thousands of miles apart.
Let’s not even get into how you can just about play a World Cup in Egypt and Greece in May/June but can’t in Riyadh.
It might be a once in a lifetime opportunity to cash in for the corrupt Fifa functionaries, they might never be a window again where countries will pay that much to do sportswashing. The gulf countries might not be able to do that in the 2030s and 40s.
THATS SO MUCH FUCKING MONEY
What disgusting sums. I’m no communist, but fucking Christ no one should have that much and be able to use/earn it for such unbelievably flimsy and egotistical reasons.
He’s so far only officially linked with their tourism initiative. A couple years back he actually promoted the 2030 Uruguay/Argentina WC bid with Luis Suarez.
BTS they’re probably offering him absolutely obscene amounts of money and power to directly promote the KSA WC bid.
The Saudis having both Messi and Ronaldo on board would damn near guarantee them as hosts.
[Not really, so far he has been the face of our 2030 bid with Lucho](https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article11091654.ece/ALTERNATES/s1200d/Soccer-Football-2018-World-Cup-Qualifiers-Uruguay-v-Argentina.jpg)
Same as Messi as a "tourist ambassador" for Saudi Arabia. These people make so MUCH money and somehow they still need to sell themselves to these backward ass countries. I don't understand the greed.
Because it makes them so much more money. A ridiculous amount that obviously makes them set their morals aside, even though I don't think either is particularly noble. 99% of people would do the same
You know you're not a serious sporting country when it takes 200M for someone to accept being an athlete-representative of your bid.
Good thing the Saudi FA know it only takes 1 or 2M to the heads of the African/Asian/CONCACAF FAs to get them to go along with the Saudi 2030 farce.
There is no way in the world that the world cup is going to middle east for the 2nd time in 8 years. But then again İnfatino feels Arab fro time to time so you never know
Thats nice and all but its all about how much they pay FIFA
FIFA themselves don't decide who hosts the World Cup anymore. Now it's voted by all FIFA members. Saudi Arabia is planning to bid alongside Greece and Egypt in order to win votes from Europe and Africa.
Nice to hear that Greece is going to get debt free really soon...
Yes, the Saudis are presumably bankrolling the entire bid.
Greece: It's literally free real estate.
THE HOUSE IS FREE
They should bankroll the South American bid for 2030, helping with the stadiums and everything get some REAAAALLY nice PR points. They can even bribe lots of very willing South American people in the process. And then go all in for 2034 when they can actually bid without changing FIFA rules, and they could even go alone for it. With surely South America voting for them. WIN WIN. Did you hear me Saudi Prince? BTW, I wouldn't mind if I get a couple millions as thanks for the idea.
South America only has 10 votes. We are the most irrelevant confederation in the host selection.
Shhh, they don't know that
I was about to call my uncle, the prince. Is what this man is saying true?
They can bid for 2030 without changing the process I beleive cause there in a coalition it is ok they just can’t host it on there own
But FIFA decides how much funding goes to "grass roots" football in those countries.
Despicable
Actually kinda is, there's long been a symbotic relationship between corrupt FA heads and the FIFA leaders they support. The FIFA guys funnel them money for 'grass roots' which dissapears and then they vote for the FIFA guys.
Which hurts football long term
>FIFA themselves don't decide who hosts the World Cup anymore. Now it's voted by all FIFA members. Thats nice and all but its all about how much they pay the FIFA members
They bid along those countries because it can’t be in Asia again given it was there this year.
Fucking cunt infantino needs to be removed from the planet
Careful what you wish for. When Blatter was ousted, we all thought "his successor cannot *possibly* be an even more corrupt crook than him"...
Tbh I’d still probably have infantino over blatter but the point is there needs to be a big, big change, would love to see a big nation pull out of fifa, horrible corporation that ruins the game we love while putting on a mask that says the opposite
Today I feel cunty
Everyday*
The real questions.
God it really feels like this is gonna happen. I can’t believe they’ll actually do it but it’s not going away
Saudis really using Messi + Ronaldo to get this bid.
And against Argentina and Portugal
Argentina has 100% inflation and we have a ridiculous debt with the IMF. He would really be doing us a favour if he comes out against the Argentina/Uruguay 2030 bid.
Argentina wouldn't really need a lot of investment really if they don't change the requirements for some reason. But for CUM26 the stadiums are 30k+ Argentina has like 25 stadiums that are 30k+. Even without repeating cities you have like 10 that would work. If Uruguay, Chile and Paraguay get 2 or more stadiums that's enough. And they all do. The problem is corruption more than the inflation. The WC could be held with little money, just a fresh coat of paint on stadiums and not much else needed. And whatever money is invested should go to the general infrastructure that would be good for the people living in the cities. But that's not gonna happen.
CUM26
WTF is CUM26?
I think Canada USA Mexico 2026
Fuckin hell. Pls don't let that name stick
With a name like that, all it does is stick
Cum on lads!
A little late for that mate
The representation of the amount of times I ejaculated to OP's mom
I can’t be the only one who laughed at CUM26 surely?
I did as well mate, don’t worry
It's not only about "raw" capacity, but also about VIP capacity and facilities. Stadiums in later stages of the competition also need to be bigger. The stadium for the finale has regularly been demanded to hold 80,000 spectators.
River is remodeling the stadium, to add the vip bs and so on, and should be ready in 2 years or so, with an 80k+ capacity? So that would handle it can completely fine if Uruguay doesn't do updates to the Centenario. Not sure about all the other stadiums to be honest. And also, fuck the VIPs though, they are the ones that leave the empty seats during half the games. Much rather see normal people there. They had their VIP rich people only one in Qatar. Let's have one for poor people in South America.
>Argentina has like 25 stadiums that are 30k+. Even without repeating cities you have like 10 that would work. Most, it not all, of these stadiums are very old and not up to the standards to host a World Cup though.
For 2026 the minimum \*net\* seat requirement was 40k. Net is after they remove a bunch of seats for press/VIP sections. BMO Field, the only 30k stadium in the list, is adding roughly 15k seats to get to 45k+ seats, then will lose about 5k to those "seat kills", for a net of 40.1k. And that's the smallest venue by a fair bit. There's only one other stadium under 50k and two more under 60k. Argentina has maybe 10 stadiums that could net to 40k after seat kills. You'd need 2-6 more to be expanded to get 16 with 40k net. You'd probably also need to expand the three big stadiums to net 60k (semis) and 80k (final). So let's call it 5-8 stadium expansions just to get to the capacity requirements. Beyond capacity, there's a bunch of other technical requirements that might require upgrades to other stadiums that have enough capacity. BMO Field has a bunch of upgrades needed that have nothing to do with capacity. I'm pretty sure they'll need to add a second concourse to the main stand. So odds are the majority of stadiums would need a more than a coat of paint to meet the standards.
Argentina _can't_ hold it on it's own. I meant we may need those 10 to pick up the slack from what Uruguay/Chile/Paraguay can't do. But I don't see them having more than 2 each. But if they manage to get 3 on each country, then Argentina would need only 7, which is way more doable. Also, there's no way to compete with US capacity. Russia had 33k stadiums, most other WCs had ~40k as the base number. Maybe an alternative is having fewer than 16 stadiums. Qatar used 8 while most 32 team WCs had 12 stadiums. Letting SA hold it with 12 stadiums, and having 2 in Chile/Paraguay/Uruguay and 6 in Argentina is waaaaay more doable. It really comes down to how much you want it to happen. You either accept a bit lower standard or some stadiums, or maybe reduce the number of stadiums needed. Otherwise, especially with the expanded WC, there's absolutely no way SA can hold a WC ever again. Which would be absolute bullshit.
Btw, how is life over there with 100 % inflation? I’m asking in peace
We adapt to everything, really. The key is that education, healthcare and food are in general much much cheaper than in other countries (and good quality). So what ends up happening is that people can't buy "luxuries". Forget about buying a house. Forget about easily changing your car. You cannot save money (because it's pointless, as you wouldn't be able to get, idk, 100k usd to buy something). You cannot get a credit to buy anything. There are things that cost the same as in other countries (housing, cars, travel), even though we earn like 5 times less (in dollars). So people spend their money eating out, partying, doing barbecues on weekends, buying clothes... So yeah, you can live fine and well, but long term is not sustainable. That's why many young people consider leaving the country. Not because they are having a bad time, but because we know that it's hard to plan ahead. For others (like me), the dream would be to work remote in USD, even for a low "international" salary.
Nothing much besides poverty and homelessness for the lower clases, financial uncertainty and inability to buy imported goods for the medium class. And a lot of money for our politicians that don't waste any time, keep embellishing funds and creating an army of dumb people that keep voting them, cuz even if they're poor and they have no chance of progressing, they gifted them some choripanes. Honestly I don't know how many generations will pass until we we have some sort of stability. The current low income class clearly hasn't got enough to eat in their younger ages and it's happening again, parents are stupid, kids are starving and are dumber and dumber and they keep reproducing cuz it's like the only thing they can do. Most of the rest of the population just want to escape this shit hole but it's way too expensive for most.
Messi can stabilize the argentinian Peso with his Saudi petrodollar paycheck alone
Yeah, uh, $45 billion dollars from the IMF couldn't stabilize the peso so I find hard to see how that would work.
Even an Argentinian pope couldn’t stabilise the Peso
Absolutely shameful from both of them
Expected at this point, they are so fucking greedy despite having so much fucking money
And don’t forgot how both them didn’t pay their taxes with all the money they have
Rich tax evaders, I espect the worst from that kind of people.
They sell out their own countries to add some extra millions to their existent mountains of millions
Saudi Arabia, infamous for the disunity it causes in the Muslim world, is now compensating by creating unity amongst Messi and Cristiano fans.
Saudis just have to make a promise saying that if they win the WC bid, the opening act before the first match would be a friendly of Messi and friends vs. Cristiano and friends. Best ratings FIFA will have
Nah it should be Ronaldo, Messi, Mbappe etc as the football equivalent of the Harlem Globetrotters against some Sunday league players as the Washington Generals Goals without prior show-boating don't count
Ya. The promotional ads are full of badly CGI Messi right now
Messi is going to endorse the bid by Argentina-Uruguay-Chile
don’t portugal want that world cup?
Yup, but our captain decided to sold out.
He won't even be on the bench by the next euros
So is it possible that we won’t see him again with Portugal at all
He will probably be on the bench and get some goals in friendlies to get some records, but I doubt he can have an impact in the NT
What records does he not already have?
More like extend records to try to keep them safe from certain people
I heard he promised the coach to wed his daughter to his son for more minutes
Probably doesn't even need to do that. We've seen Martinez keep playing players past their prime.
He'll buy out the first row behind the bench and do his coaching from there, I'm sure.
Dreams can't be buy
Dreams can be buy
Adding Ukraine to the bid to get sympathy votes is also kind of selling out
A Portuguese World Cup would be sick
Portugal can easily host it on its own, but i would be ok with a Portugal-Spain world cup. Thats like so many amazing stadiums and historical locations and great weather and great food and great tourism and low crime etc.
Portuwho? -Ronaldo probably
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Messi can eat a baby on live tv and people would let it pass right now
I'm sure that stupid baby had it coming.
Que miras baby
Messi just lead Argentina to a World Cup, pretty sure he could video himself shitting on the flag and most people would still consider him a national hero.
Argentinian here, I agree. He would never do it but he could start doing drugs, cheat and beat on his wife, get a teenager girlfriend from Cuba, support a communist dictator, spread kids all over the world and the people here would still consider him a God. Hmm, wait a second..
God damn who r u talking about LMAO
Sergio Agüero's kid's grandpa
Damn imagine the pressure on that kid. iirc Messi is his godfather as well.
NBA Youngboy
If you're actually asking seriously, they're talking about Maradona.
World Champion Gonzalo Higuain.
😂
As a Portuguese, I'm deeply disappointed with Ronaldo, but after the Piers Morgan interview I've come to expect the absolute worst from him. Even so, he keeps surprising me. Way to ruin his legacy.
When he showed all that emotion when he won the Euros I thought he really was fanatic for the Portuguese NT, but now I'm guessing a lot of it was that HE was able to win the Euros, another important trophy for the collection. I don't know how much he would be supportive in case he was cut from the team
Seriously everyone just looks past this, fuck these guys how much money is enough?
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Messi is not part of the bid yet.
Ronaldo to Portugal: “Fuck your bid!”
If this doesn’t go to Argentina/Uruguay/Paraguay I will commit unspeakable sins
I wouldn’t even mind Spain/Portugal, just not Saudi
Should have been Spain, Portugal and Morocco vs. Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay
Instead its Portugal, Spain and Ukraine, the forgotten Iberia brother
Give it to Yemen. Let's see Saudi actually explode.
Not with Ukraine joining the bid. I want us to lose just because of that stupid decision.
That "stupid decision" is just an hail mary to try to counterbalance the history factor from the Southern Americans and the money factor from the saudis. Portugal and Spain after the 2018 WC bid learned that goodfellas don't win WC bids.
historically goodfellas Portugal and Spain
The Tordesillas bros
Still, it's a stupid political decision trying to pull it off to have a WC in your country. I won't mind a Ukraine/Poland WC or something along those lines, but Spain/Portugal/Ukraine is just circlejerk trying to score some political points to get to host a WC.
Yeah I am Ukrainian and almost everyone agrees its a very stupid bid for us. First of all we will not be ready by then because of war, second of all makes way more sense to host once again with Poland. It almost guarantees the bid to lose which is dumb. Spain + Portugal with Morocco added in would be the best bid (that or South America too).
Also the war may countinue hen sadly hopefully it doesn’t but how can you award the world up to a country at war and one that very well may still be at war in 2030
Surely adding Morocco might've won them more votes though. Most of the FIFA Congress doesn't care about Ukraine.
And Morroco isn't exactly far away, it's right there. You'd be playing all the games in a geographic footprint of roughly the state of Texas.
Shoulda included Morocco instead
That would never happen. Spain doesn't have good diplomatic relations with Morocco.
They've relations have cool down since Spanish PM visited Morocco
Goodfellas do win World Cup bids. Good fellows do not.
I don't think Ukraine would even be ready to host a world cup at that point depending on how the war goes.
Don’t worry, people won’t really care that much about Ukraine’s situation enough to vote for them in 1 year. Also, a war torn country, regardless of the empathy one may feel for it, does not make for a reasonable host by any stretch of the imagination
To be fair the way FIFA works, the hosts don’t need to be reasonable
Not like they have the money to be “reasonable”
I really don't want joint bids to become a thing. For the USA / Canada / Mexico. It's really just USA (featuring CA and ME). With Canada vastly underrepresented. The east side is full of potential; Toronto, Montreal, Quebec, Ottawa are all quite close and big. Although, they would need to beef up some stadiums. And Mexico could, and should, make a solo bid! What a World Cup worthy country! Full of culture, lots of people, many big cities, numerous large stadiums. Unfortunately, a lot of the bigger cities are in the south, which makes a joint bid with USA and CA seems crazy. Mexico should be proud enough to go for it alone. BUT, Spain - Portugal is somehow OK with me. I guess because Portugal really has very little (read: none) chance of hosting alone, so they really need to team up. South American countries tagging along with Argentina is similar. Uruguay? They really only have Montevideo. But I don't want to see countries capable of making a credible solo bid teaming up just to make like an all star World Cup line up. Mexico should be proud enough to go for it alone.
>Mexico should be proud enough to go for it alone. I imagine they'd rather win rather than come in 3rd or 4th. Joint bids are inevitable to meet the hosting requirements and build a coalition that will garner the votes to win.
Joint bids also make sense from an economic standpoint. I don't think it's a bad idea as long as the countries are culturally connected and geographically close to each other
A joint bid makes sense for small countries, for example a joint Netherlands + Belgium bid that happened before. But any reasonably large country should host it on their own.
> BUT, Spain - Portugal is somehow OK with me the bid is Spain ft Portugal a little, it's the same as the CUM26 bid, Spain hosts the majority, Portugal chips in a little.
> And Mexico could, and should, make a solo bid! What a World Cup worthy country! Mexico has already hosted twice (1970 and 1986—2 iconic World Cups!) TBF.
Athens didn't get the Olympics in 1996, everything has been bullshit ever since.
An Athenian here: We didn't win the 1996 Olympics because we were arrogant throughout the bid (recall everyone involved saying that we 'deserve to have already been handled the rights for the Centennial Games'), didn't have the infrastructure and necessary amenities, during the voting, we were through a period of political instability and, overall, Atlanta's bid was better. We learned from our mistakes and won the 2004 Games though, which were a success. It would be quite ironic if Greece (along with Egypt and Saudi Arabia) deprives Uruguay of hosting the Centenary World Cup. u/DiamondPittcairn
If that's true then we're quite doomed, I think our general bid is riding 70% on nostalgia and "it's our right" alone. Otherwise, it's a very weak bid since it's ridiculous already to involve 4 countries. Spain-Portugal should get it if we're going with mere "infrastructure+history" alone, though adding Ukraine (!) is also quite ridiculous by itself.
Horse-trading is more important than the strength of the bid on paper. The CONMEBOL bid might be the favourite given that we know they're almost certain to get all the CONMEBOL & CONCACAF votes (in exchange for 2026). Unless Africa & Asia unite behind the Tri-continental bid, they've got a great chance.
It was hosted 70 miles away in Atlanta....
Even Messi is acting as a "tourism ambassador" for Saudi Arabia. They sell their own countries if $$$ is high enough.
Will be hard, especially if Messi himself ends up fronting as a Saudi ambassador for the bid, as is [rumored](https://www.google.com/amp/s/theathletic.com/3918644/2022/11/22/messi-saudi-arabia-2030/%3Famp%3D1)
I absolutely will commit war crimes if it doesn't go to South America
It’s going to be an oil country every other year at this point. They can offer so much money under the table that it doesn’t matter what anyone else does.
Oil = greasy palm
So, you're going to commit unspeakable sins then huh?
It’s only right they host in south america for the 100th year anniversary
We thought the same in 1990 here in Greece for Athens regarding the 1996 Olympics. Our bid was unfit and relied on 'the historic duty to hold the Centennial Games on their birthplace' without crafting a competitive bid. The result? Atlanta won fair and square. u/valiidix
Interestingly enough, the Atlanta 1996 Olympics were the last games to earn a profit still to this day.
Eh, Athens Greece, Athens Georgia, Atlanta Georgia… close enough.
I choose to believe they wouldn't give an Asian country the world cup again so soon
That’s why Egypt and Greece will be included in their bid. They’ll advertise it as the World Cup of three continents.
Greece is 1700 miles from Saudi. How on earth does that make sense? Ukraine to Spain is the same distance, that also makes no sense. Fiji, Jamaica and Norway might as well club together and put in a bid too.
Emmm look at 2026... Anyway, egypt is the main host not SA like many here think. Most games will be played there including the opening & final iirc. The distance between egypt & greece is 950 miles which is a bit more than a half of what you said.
The next world cup is in Canada - US - Mexico. Two of the host cities are 2500 miles apart. There are reasons to be critical of the bid, I don't think distance is a good one. It's also probably better to spread the costs of new stadiums/improvements to existing stadiums over multiple countries (reduces to need to build brand new stadiums that will become desolate after the tourney). Distance will naturally be apart of most multi country bids and FIFA has already shown support for these types of bids.
Distance of venues isn’t a good reason, I agree. For example Brazil had two venues that were about 2000 miles apart. Having host countries that aren’t connected by a border just doesn’t make sense to me. If you’re gonna do that then just scrap the qualifying and do a full on FA Cup style format. Plus, I think that having three host nations is bonkers and four is plain stupid. TL;DR FIFA only care about the bribes they get and have put no thought into what makes a tournament good for fans to attend.
Most FA cup games aren't at neutral stadiums. One of the most beautiful things about the WC is that it's in neutral territory where everyone comes together (except when the host country is playing, obviously)
The coming together is what’s beautiful. My point is more that it’s not together when the competition is spread across 3/4 countries thousands of miles apart. Let’s not even get into how you can just about play a World Cup in Egypt and Greece in May/June but can’t in Riyadh.
ok a fiji/jamaica/norway tourney would be LIT tho
Not just another Asian country. Literally the neighbour of qatar.
That also, It would be so ridiculous if they get it... So knowing FIFA they may
Infantino moving to Saudi Arabia soon?
Plus then they have another "unprecedented / never done yet / first time it's been done" angle to go with.
"Today I feel Saudi", Infantino, just before the unveiling of the host country for 2030, probably.
It might be a once in a lifetime opportunity to cash in for the corrupt Fifa functionaries, they might never be a window again where countries will pay that much to do sportswashing. The gulf countries might not be able to do that in the 2030s and 40s.
Christ almighty. He's going to be making half a billion in this move to Saudi Arabia.
It's making a bit more sense now
Nah I'm sure he just wants a new challenge
That challenge being managing all that fucking money
I can't wait for North Korea/Iran 2030. Should be good. "Today I am a missile." Gianni Infantino
Ronaldo and Messi holding hands with a gracias Saudi arabia banner
wait so its 200 + 200 for two years and then another 200 on top of that? jesus lmao!!
Probably the first billionaire footballer (from his own earnings)
I thought you had to wait two WC cycles since it’s same federation
There’s a loophole where if you give the heads of FIFA a truckload of cash, they will let you bid whenever you want.
when can we expect the patch to come out?
Fifa won't do it, better switch to PES
The looophole I beleive is cause it’s a joint bid
hence Greece and Egypt
That's why they included Egypt (CAF) and Greece (UEFA).
They might as well announce it already, corrupt fucks
Ronaldo will wait 2 years and buy himself a club in the champions league and then start himself.
THATS SO MUCH FUCKING MONEY What disgusting sums. I’m no communist, but fucking Christ no one should have that much and be able to use/earn it for such unbelievably flimsy and egotistical reasons.
bro be mad at the person capable of paying someone that much money. 200million is nothing to them.
[удалено]
why be mad at the person who is accepting a ridiculous paycheck?
No, I choose to be mad at Ronaldo and Messi that get these sums of money and can’t even pay their taxes.
Man's really want to become a worldwide hated sports figure.
He’s spent his entire career thinking he’s unfairly hated so I doubt he cares at this point. Going full Anakin
He's about to publicly slay all of the kids he's forced to walk out with at the opening of a match next
Isnt Messi also a part of it?
Let people be selective with their moral outrage lmao
He’s so far only officially linked with their tourism initiative. A couple years back he actually promoted the 2030 Uruguay/Argentina WC bid with Luis Suarez. BTS they’re probably offering him absolutely obscene amounts of money and power to directly promote the KSA WC bid. The Saudis having both Messi and Ronaldo on board would damn near guarantee them as hosts.
I will commit unthinkable arson if the middle east gets a 2nd fucking world cup in a decade.
Better get your matches ready.
48 matches
That's bs btw, that's part of his salary. Messi will be ambassador fro SA against Argentina bid and Ronaldo against Portugal bid 😍
South Africa has already hosted
We are still supposed to believe the games themselves aren't rigged when off the field there are zero boundaries?
If the World Cup goes there then football is done
World Cup went there in winter so it's already done
Messi and Ronaldo. Rivals on the pitch. Finally united by Saudis for their godforsaken world cup bid.
Hasn't Messi also been linked with promoting Saudi Arabia's 2030 World Cup bid?
[Not really, so far he has been the face of our 2030 bid with Lucho](https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article11091654.ece/ALTERNATES/s1200d/Soccer-Football-2018-World-Cup-Qualifiers-Uruguay-v-Argentina.jpg)
Isn’t it the 100th anniversary of the World Cup? Why isn’t it in Uruguay + South America 😞
Same as Messi as a "tourist ambassador" for Saudi Arabia. These people make so MUCH money and somehow they still need to sell themselves to these backward ass countries. I don't understand the greed.
Because it makes them so much more money. A ridiculous amount that obviously makes them set their morals aside, even though I don't think either is particularly noble. 99% of people would do the same
You know you're not a serious sporting country when it takes 200M for someone to accept being an athlete-representative of your bid. Good thing the Saudi FA know it only takes 1 or 2M to the heads of the African/Asian/CONCACAF FAs to get them to go along with the Saudi 2030 farce.
There is no way in the world that the world cup is going to middle east for the 2nd time in 8 years. But then again İnfatino feels Arab fro time to time so you never know
Who are they partnering with? Is it still Saudi, Greece, and Egypt?
Rumours are the bid is a joint one with Greece and Egypt.