The United Kingdom and Ireland withdrew their bid to host the 2030 World Cup

With the UK withdrawing, Portugal and Spain should be European candidates to host the 2030 World Cup. Photo: Mark Atkins/Getty Images

As football fans await the World Cup in Qatar at the end of the year, some federations are also considering the future, with bids to host the World Cup in 2030. In this sense, England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Ireland have announced that they will not compete for the organisation.

In a joint statement issued by the Football Association, the governing body for football in England, the United Kingdom and Ireland said, after a feasibility study, that it had decided to focus on organizing Euro 2028 rather than the World Cup.

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They said hosting the Euro offers a similar return on investment, although they expect the European Championship to be cheaper and potential benefits to materialize soon. “It would be an honor and a privilege to collectively host Euro 2028 and to host the whole of Europe,” they said, explaining what they expect by hosting the tournament with teams from the “old world”.

“It will also be a great opportunity to show the true impact of hosting a world-class football tournament to create positive change and leave a lasting legacy in our communities,” they explained.

Thus, the host country for the 2030 World Cup, which will be decided at the FIFA 2024 conference, has one less candidate. At that moment, the only European bid to organize the 2030 World Cup was jointly Spain and Portugal, although there was also speculation about the possibility of Morocco joining, in a bid to bi-continental.

Among the other potential candidates, Morocco can run either itself or jointly with Algeria and Tunisia.

Meanwhile, CONMEBOL could have two: On the one hand, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Chile will present a joint bid after the first announcement in 2017, in which Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez were a visible face of the show.

Another possibility is Ecuador, Colombia and Peru, which also jointly decided to propose hosting the World Cup as another alternative to CONMEBOL.

In Europe, there has also been speculation of a proposal from Bulgaria, Greece, Romania and Serbia, although UEFA president Aleksandar Ceferin wants Europe to go with one proposal (Portugal and Spain would have more power).