In 2034, Saudi Arabia will host the World Cup in football for the first time — it can be held in winter

The International Football Federation (FIFA) has chosen the countries that will host the 2030 and 2034 World Cups. The candidacies were approved during the congress on December 11.

This was reported by the FIFA press service.

The 2030 FIFA World Cup will be hosted by Morocco, Portugal and Spain. Three more games will be played in Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina. For the first time in history, the World Cup will be held on three continents and in six countries, writes the Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera.

Saudi Arabia will host the World Cup for the first time and is the only country to have applied in time to host the 2034 tournament. The country will be the second in the Middle East to host the tournament, after Qatar, which hosted the World Cup in 2022.

The matches will be held in 15 stadiums in five cities of Saudi Arabia. It is the capital of Riyadh and the cities of Jeddah, Al-Khubar, Abgha and Neom. The 92,000-capacity King Salman Stadium in Riyadh is expected to host the opening and final matches once construction is complete.

As previously reported by The Times newspaper, the 2034 championship may be held in January. This possibility is considered due to the climatic features of Saudi Arabia and religious events.

• Initially, Ukraine, Spain and Portugal submitted a joint application to host the 2030 World Cup. However, after the corruption scandal related to the president of the Ukrainian Football Association, Andriy Pavelko, Ukraine was replaced by Morocco on this list.

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