Saudi Arabia to Bid US$40bn for FIFA 2030 World Cup
Main Photo: What the FIFA World Cup Fanzone might look like!
Date: September 2022
Name: FIFA 2030 World Cup
Location: It is understood the Saudis will make a joint bid, with Egypt and Greece as co-hosts
Number of Keys: in 2022: The World Cup is expected to attract more than one million visitors, but by March 2022 Qatar only had 30,000 hotel rooms, 80% of which had already been booked by Fifa for football teams, officials, and sponsors
Saudi Arabia is planning to bid for the FIFA 2030 World Cup, in what would be it’s biggest ever sporting event on the global stage.
It is understood the Saudis will make a joint bid, with Egypt and Greece as co-hosts. However, Saudi Arabia will be the lead partner and stage the majority of games, including the final knockout rounds.
Any bid would be in the region of at least US$40bn, and Saudi Arabia would contribute towards infrastructure costs in Egypt and Greece.
Given the climate, if successful the tournament would again be staged during the winter months, similar to the Qatar World Cup which starts in November this year.
“This is absolutely massive and actually, given the way FIFA chooses host nations with all the federations voting, has a great chance of succeeding,” says a source to Arabian Business.
Currently, a joint bid between Portugal and Spain is seen as the front runner, with England having pulled out.
“This has completely shaken things up. The Portugal and Spain bid looked a dead cert, and that’s even why England pulled out. But a lot of African and Asian federations would probably vote for this especially as Egypt is involved,” says a source.
Price: The bid cost alone is estimated at US$40bn
THPT Comment: OK Football, Fans and Beer – had us all perplexed at Qatar’s hosting this year…and a lack of hotel beds….Saudi at least had more cities to act as host stadia for the matches….bringing Egypt in to the bid, may up the voting from Africa…Wonder if this was in the 2030 Vision, which to date has been very exciting… : a) Raise the contribution of the tourism sector to the domestic product to more than 10% b) Provide one million additional job opportunities c) Attract 100 million annual visits by 2030.
First Seen: Hotelier Middle East
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