he South American bid to stage
the 2030 World Cup is based
on the idea of celebrating the
centenary of the tournament.
With the inaugural version having
been held in Uruguay in 1930,
there is an undoubted romantic appeal in going
back to the source. However, with only one city of
note, Uruguay could not possibly stage a modern
World Cup on its own.
The obvious move, then, was to bring in Argentina
as co-host. To widen the base of support, Chile and
Paraguay have also been included in a campaign
that has been up and running for a while.
But now there is a rival South American bid for
2030 being discussed.
Ecuador president Lenin Moreno is the man
behind a tournament idea that would be shared
with Colombia and Peru, and his Colombian
counterpart, Ivan Duque, has already come out
enthusiastically in favour of the plan – a very
important step, since his country would surely
stage the bulk of the matches.
South America hosted the World Cup as recently
as 2014, which is later than the last tournaments in
Western Europe or Africa, and there are plenty of
other powerful contenders for 2030, such as China,
a Spain-Portugal-Morocco bid and the UK.
With the principal strength of the Uruguay-
Argentina-Chile-Paraguay bid being that it would
celebrate the centenary back at the original venue,
it is unclear how an
Ecuador-Colombia-
Peru campaign could
be successful.
But maybe that
is not the point...
It is possible that
one of its objectives is
precisely to ensure that
2030 does not go to
South America at all- because once the
centenary factor is
removed the game
changes for future bids.
A 2030 success for
Colombia
join World
Cup chase
Uruguay’s 2030 dream
comes under threat
Uruguay, Argentina et al would put all the other South
American countries right to the back of the queue and
it would be decades before the tournament could
return. And by rights, Colombia can claim that they
should be the next in line.
Uruguay had 1930, Chile 1962, Argentina 1978 and
Brazil have hosted twice. True, the 1986 World Cup was
due to go to Colombia, but that decision was clearly
premature and, under pressure, they gave up and the
tournament was switched to Mexico. Fast forward more
than three decades and things now look very different.
With its urban centres and well developed internal
air market, Colombia looks much more like a potential
host and its successful staging of the 2011 Under-20
World Cup was generally seen as a mini rehearsal.
Ecuador is well suited to being a partner but Peru
looks more problematic. A lack of government support
led to the country being stripped of this year’s Under-
17 World Cup and the Sudamericana Cup Final. But, in
reality, the bid would be mostly focused on Colombia- which, with 2030 out of the way, would see itself as
the next South American candidate.
It is highly likely that part of the thinking behind
this idea is to split the continental vote to ensure
2030 goes elsewhere. In the shorter term, there is
the chance that Ecuador and Colombia might look
Presidential backing...Ivan Duque
(left) and Lenin MorenoT
South America
TIM VICKERY