Jordan Henderson has backed Saudi Arabia’s bid for the 2034 World Cup finals, while Fifa is on a collision course with major European nations over fears the governing body is once again doing backroom deals to choose the hosts.
Bidders to host the 2034 World Cup finals including Australia – beaten by Qatar for the 2022 tournament – have been told today by Fifa they have just 25 days to declare an interest, with Saudi ready to see off all challengers.
Henderson, who joined the Saudi Pro League club Al-Ettifaq in the summer, was one of a number of high-profile players now in Saudi to lend his support to the 2034 bid. Henderson sent a selfie video to the Saudi broadcaster Asharq Al-Awsat, based in London, offering his support. “Very excited about the announcement,” he said. “Go Saudi Arabia 2034”.
The Saudis have been working on their 2034 bid for months while the Australian football association – Football Australia – is now in a race against time to come up with a detailed bid. The bidding schedule is understood to have been discussed in Fifa Council meetings conducted via videolink this week.
Saudi has also already secured the support of its home continental confederation, the Asian Football Confederation, which is seen as fundamental to any successful bid. Australia also sits in the AFC, having switched from the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) in 2006.
High-profile players in the Saudi Pro League, including Henderson, Riyad Mahrez and Karim Benzema as well as manager Roberto Mancini, all offered their backing for the Saudi bid.
For the clubs and the major European national associations, another winter World Cup finals would cause chaos for domestic and continental club football when it comes to match calendars and broadcast deals.
The 2034 bid deadline – 25 days away for a World Cup finals in 11 years’ time - has come amid a flurry of announcements this week from Fifa. Chief among them the awarding of the centenary 2030 finals to a joint-bid of Spain, Portugal and Morocco, with opening matches staged in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay – the latter of which hosted the original 1930 tournament.
It is not clear from Fifa’s statement if there has been any discussion of how the six-way staging of the 2030 tournament will work. The World Cup has been co-hosted just once before, in 2002. The 2034 proposal would see games in two hemispheres and fears have been raised over how that would work from a broadcast perspective as well as from a sustainability viewpoint.
Now sources have indicated that Fifa president Gianni Infantino is presenting hosting decisions as a fait accompli for rubber stamping by the Fifa Congress, having promised to put the power back in the hands of Fifa’s 211 individual national associations. In a statement on the 2030 finals, Fifa said there had been “extensive consultation” with all confederations - but the mood in Europe sees it differently.
Infantino pledged greater transparency after the 2015 Fifa corruption scandal that followed the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup finals, and ended in arrests, convictions and the resignation of former president Sepp Blatter. Power to award tournaments was taken away from the closed shop of the now-defunct 22-person executive committee.
The current Fifa Council numbers 37, with nine European representatives including Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin and current English FA chair Debbie Hewitt, and is intended to be more open.
Football Australia must now decide whether it is prepared to push ahead with a bid, which will include forging the necessary political deals to secure government support and potentially identifying a possible co-host. Following the announcement, Football Australia was seeking clarification on exactly what level of detail it would have to provide in time for Fifa’s deadline.
Saudi has announced in recent days that it intends to bid for 2034 – previously an open secret given the benefits the 2022 tournament bestowed on its tiny Gulf neighbour, and sometime rival, Qatar. During the tournament, which cost £180 billion to stage, Qatar played host to key figures in geo-politics including US secretary of state Anthony Blinken. Its profile as a modern state soared globally – crucial for Qatar’s future if it is ever to be threatened by bigger, more aggressive states in the Gulf.
The Saudi government’s massive investment in the Saudi Pro League, to sign the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar, Benzema and N’Golo Kante, as well as a host of famous ageing stars from the Premier League, is a stalking horse for the 2034 bid.
The Football Australia chief executive James Johnstone is due in London a week tomorrow to attend the friendly between his country’s men’s team and England at Wembley. While Australia is disadvantaged by its time zone when it comes to hosting a World Cup finals the country feels that it did not diminish the women’s tournament held there this year.
The 2026 tournament will be across the US, Canada and Mexico. The British and Irish government did briefly consider a joint bid for the 2030 World Cup finals but that was never pursued when it became obvious Spain and Portugal had Uefa’s backing. The British-Irish bid is expected to be awarded Euro 2028 by Uefa.
Johnstone said in a statement that Australia was exploring a bid for the 2034 finals and also the 2029 Fifa Club World Cup. Fifa has said that 2034 will be hosted in the AFC or OFC.
