This Friday, FIFA announced some of the important dates for the 2030 World Cup, which, as was learned on Wednesday, will be played in Spain, Portugal and Morocco, in addition to the three matches that will be played in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay. The tournament will begin on June 8 in Montevideo and the final will be played on July 21 at a still unknown venue. In addition, what they have called “a centenary celebration ceremony” will be held in the Uruguayan capital, to commemorate the hundred years of history that the championship will then complete. On the other hand, the official opening ceremony and the opening matches will be on June 13 and 14, almost a week later, in Spain, Portugal or Morocco.
According to FIFA on its website, the objective is to provide sufficient rest time for those teams that will have to play their first matches in South American territory before traveling to the Iberian Peninsula and Morocco. Such will be the case of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and the respective inaugural rivals of these three.
FIFA also announced the dates of the second day of the groups of these three teams, which will be played between June 21 and 22. “The planned calendar will provide about 11 or 12 days so that the six teams that play in South America can travel and rest before their second match,” noted the highest authority in world soccer.
“In a divided world, FIFA and football are coming together,” FIFA president Gianni Infantino said in a statement last Wednesday. “It was unanimously agreed to celebrate the centenary of the FIFA World Cup, the first edition of which was played in Uruguay in 1930, in the most appropriate way. As a result, there will be a celebration in South America and three South American countries (Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay) will each host a 2030 FIFA World Cup match. The first of these three matches will, of course, be played in the stadium where it started everything, in the legendary Centenario Stadium in Montevideo, precisely to celebrate the centenary edition of the FIFA World Cup,” Infantino added.
The agreement reached by both candidates was voted and approved by the FIFA council last Wednesday afternoon. This unexpected movement, according to sources familiar with the negotiations, began to take shape as a result of the Rubiales case. The Spanish, Portuguese and Moroccan option was the great favorite to organize the entire event, but the situation took a turn with the scandal that broke out after the former president of the federation gave a non-consensual kiss to the soccer player Jennifer Hermoso in the celebrations for the world title, achieved in Australia and New Zealand. The FIFA Congress, made up of the 211 member federations, will make further decisions on the organization of the World Cup official in the fourth quarter of 2024.
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