Ukraine joins Spain, Portugal in bid to host 2030 FIFA World Cup

KYIV: Ukraine has joined Spain and Portugal in their bid to host the 2030 edition of the FIFA World Cup. As per Sky Sports, Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) and the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) confirmed this new partnership during a conference at the Swiss headquarters of UEFA, the governing body of the sport in Europe.

This bid is backed by UEFA and will be competing against other candidacies like a collaboration between Egypt, Greece, and Saudi Arabia and a joint South American hosting proposal from Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay, and Chile.

The decision on this edition of the tournament will be taken at the 2024 FIFA Congress, where 211 member associations will vote on their choices.

By 2030, the World Cup will have undergone an expansion, adding 16 more teams to make it a 48-team tournament. After this year's World Cup in Qatar, the United States, Canada, and Mexico will be hosting the first-ever World Cup in the 48-team format in 2026.

The 2024 European Championships are set to be held in Germany but hosts for the 2028 edition of the tournament are yet to be decided.

In August this year, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and Paraguay announced their intention to make four country bid to bring back the football's greatest event to South America. All of these countries, except for Paraguay have hosted a World Cup. The previous World Cup held in this continent was in 2014 in Brazil. Another three-country bid is expected to come from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Greece, which have never hosted the tournament before.

In 2018, Morocco was announced to be making a bid for 2030 WC as well, with a possible joint bid with African nations Tunisia and Algeria. Morocco had previously failed in their bid to host the event in 1994, 1998, 2006 and 2010. Another inter-confederation bid on cards is lead by Israel, with support from UAE and Bahrain as options. Israel and UAE both have hosted Asia Cup in the past 60 years. Australia has also found mention as a potential World Cup host on two occasions.

In 2015, there were rumours of New Zealand looking to team up with them for a joint bid. In 2019, talks were announced to be underway between Australia-Indonesia for a joint bid. Both Theresa May and Boris Johnson have expressed a desire as Prime Ministers to put forward England as hosts of the 2030 WC. However in February this year, it was announced that England will be a part of a joint bid for the 2028 European Championships featuring the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The current UK Prime Minister Liz Truss however suggests that England aims to host the 2027 Women's World Cup, after the successfully hosting European Championships last summer.