Ref: AD-3027
Summary: although the expansion of this year’s World Cup finals to 48 countries proved to be a success, advantages specific to its three host nations simply do not apply to Saudi Arabia’s solo hosting of the 2034 tournament even if FIFA rejects proposals to expand again to 64 participants.
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Former UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson is popularly believed to have said “a week is a long time in politics”. The quote is apocryphal in fact; but it does seem that a week is indeed a long time in the world of soccer politics at least. Just a week ago in the Arab Digest Newsletter I opined that, with Spain and Portugal co-hosting (together with Morocco), UEFA was unlikely to pull out of the 2030 World Cup. But I did think that relations between UEFA and FIFA were heading in a direction which, together with a number of other challenges facing Saudi Arabia’s hosting, made a 2034 boycott a non-negligible possibility. In my defence, this was when the football world was focused on Gianni Infantino’s proposal to expand the finals from 48 to 64 countries, i.e. before his plan to sell off FIFA’s competitions to private investors got into the public domain (are the two ideas possibly related, I wonder?). Still, I was clearly wrong! It does, of course, make sense to wait and see what Mr Infantino (who is offering $20m up front to every federation which votes in favour of the privatisation plan – which is no small incentive to fall into line) does next. But there can be little doubt that UEFA means what it says. After all, the vote was unanimous which means Portugal and Spain (but not Morocco which is not a UEFA member of course) voted in favour of a boycott. I guess a World Cup without UEFA (which has 55 full members, i.e. over a quarter of FIFA’s 211 membership) is conceivable. But it is worth keeping in mind that six out of eight quarterfinalists this year were UEFA members and that European leagues dominate the airwaves worldwide. So, although both FIFA and UEFA would be the weaker for a split I can’t help but think that the former would come off the worse.
More from the BBC on the possible repercussions of the UEFA vote on boycotting FIFA competitions yesterday. It’s interesting – but unsurprising – that the name of PSG President Nasser Al-Khelaifi has come up as a possible challenger to Infantino in the forthcoming elections. But it is, perhaps, equally unsurprising that he has said that he wouldn’t want the job which looks increasingly like a poisoned chalice right now. I guess that there will also be no surprise that a member of the Kushner family is heavily involved as a potential beneficiary of Infantino’s scheme. Would anyone be surprised if it were to stretch closer still to Donald Trump?