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- The UK government announced its intention to launch a joint bid, with Ireland, to host the 2030 World Cup
- The Smart Money podcast asked – Do we finally need to have an honest conversation about the worth of World Cups to countries?
- It was revealed in an exclusive interview given by Prime Minister Boris Johnson to The Sun
Ireland and the UK will put in a bid to host World Cup 2030.
That’s according to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who revealed the news ahead of the UK’s Budget event.
The World Cup 2030 bid hopes to include games from England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and The Republic Of Ireland.
As mentioned in a previous post, in collaboration with A State Of Mind, we’ve launched a new podcast focused on the business of football, called The Smart Money – subscribe here and watch the first episode here also. We covered the World Cup 2030 bid topic with contributor Colin Watt.
The UK and Irish World Cup bid would appear, on paper, to have a great chance. The joint big is blessed with some of the best stadiums, not just in Europe, but in the world. If this bid did turn out to be successful, Aston Villa’s venerable Villa Park stadium would also be upgraded.
It is the first English bid since the disaster in 2018 where they only received two votes out of 22, at a cost of £21 million – not even the Royal Family (!) or David Beckham could save the doomed bid.
Rival bids for 2030 are expected to come from Iberia (Spain/Portugal), the Balkans (Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Serbia), South America (Columbia, Peru, Uruguay), and Morocco.
So, the central question asked on The Smart Money was, are World Cup bids, and the assumed economic benefits even real?
World Cup Host Criteria
- To host a World Cup, a bid must have six 20,000+ seater stadiums
- Bidding for the 2030 World Cup begins in 2022
- From the 2026 World Cup in America, Canada and Mexico the number of teams competing will be expanded to 46
Do World Cup hosts benefit from the tournament?
The answer, appears to be no. Or if they do, it is so minuscule to barely register in economic performance.
What’s this based off? Economist Wolfgang Maennig penned a Hamburg University study of Germany 2006 World Cup. He found that there was “no meaningful boost to the German economy”.
Beyond this research, an analysis of the 1994 World Cup in America found that “American host cities during the 1994 World Cup experienced declines in income”. Yet in 1988, The respected Washington Post opined that the tournament would “generate billions in dollars” primarily from tourism.
This seems to be a very common theme. Pre-event hype, wonky economic figures and complete amnesia after-the-fact when the tournament is done contribute to wildly inaccurate estimations of the economic impact of the World Cup on nations.
Also, crucially, the tournament will expand from 2026 to 48 teams. So any future bids will require more stadiums and more infrastructure (such as roads, airports and accommodation). In fact, there will be 80 games over 32 days, across sixteen stadiums in total for the 2026 World Cup tournament.
Also, importantly to say, this debate on the true value of tournaments is not confined just to the World Cup – the Olympics have been dogged by this issues for years. Read more about that here.
World Cup 2030
So who’s likely to win the 2030 World Cup bid?
During The Smart Money podcast, Colin raised an excellent point (listen below) that it would be the 100 year anniversary of the first World Cup, which could indicate where it may head. Also, if you’re interested in reading some more World Cup history also check out this post on the background to the World Cup trophy.
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Ireland & The UK’s chances for the 2030 World Cup?
As mentioned by Colin, there’s some serious history in favour of a South American bid. However, the simple fact is the UK and Irish World Cup bid is blessed with fabulous stadiums that need little, to no upgrading. In addition, all countries (even in spite of Brexit) are very well connected (airports, boats etc).
However, it would be wrong to assume that this will be enough.
As shown by the English bid in 2018, there’s no easy path to winning a bid to host a World Cup, especially with the weight of history associated with the 2030 tournament.
World Cups are great – for countries, for fans, but maybe it is time we had a real, open and honest conversation about what their benefits are. At least that way, unrealistic expectations of a World Cup leading to a generational leap in economic performance can stop being trotted out.
However, one positive note to end on regarding World Cups. One benefit academics saw from Germany 2006 was an increase in the birth rate nine months after the end of the tournament.
Surely, that’s a benefit to any host nation?
