Ukraine will join Spain and Portugal's bid to host the 2030 World Cup

Spain and Portugal can take a giant step to ensure the organization of the 2030 World Cup if, as

advanced , Ukraine joins the Iberian candidacy by hosting one of the groups in the first phase.

This newspaper has contacted the Spanish Football Federation and the entity chaired by Luis Rubiales has referred to the press conference scheduled for Wednesday at two in the afternoon at the UEFA headquarters, in Nyon, together with his counterpart Fernando Gomez.

Both are vice presidents of UEFA and strong men of the president of the European organization, the Slovenian Alexander Ceferin.

He also assures that both the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the Portuguese, of António Costa, would have agreed with Volodímir Zelenski, the integration of Ukraine into the project.

From Moncloa, Pedro Sánchez's Executive confirms the intention of adding Ukraine and assures that it will support the new project proposed by both federations and blessed by UEFA, reports

.

Both the Spanish and Portuguese federations have taken the lead over the rival bids, anticipating logistics and organization work such as pre-selecting the host cities without FIFA having yet published the specifications.

Both entities have based themselves on the requirements that were requested for the election of the 2026 World Cup, which will be held in the United States, Mexico and Canada, and they already work with several cities.

The great opponent of the Iberian project is the South American project, led by Uruguay, which would celebrate in 2030 the centenary of the first World Cup played in Charrúa lands.

Argentina and Paraguay and Chile are also interested in being part of this candidacy, less advanced than the Iberian one.

They have not yet officially defined which countries would be part of it.

Another more recent and less powerful project is that of Saudi Arabia, Greece and Egypt.

The addition of Ukraine to Spain and Portugal 2030 would be the final blow to mark distances with the competition of both projects.

The incorporation of Ukraine would also be a blow in terms of image for UEFA with respect to reinforcing itself as an organizing entity for international competitions and also in solidarity with the ruling of the Super League on December 15 in which the Court of Justice of the Union Union must decide if the European body incurs a monopoly as a ruler of the tournaments.

FIFA, also involved in the lawsuit, has not ruled on the incorporation and, even if it was not convinced, it would end up supporting and benefiting from it before the international community less than two months before the start of the controversial World Cup in Qatar.

FIFA has not yet designated the dates on which the venue for the 2030 World Cup will be determined, which by tradition would correspond to Europe or Africa because the 2026 World Cup will be held in America.

The election is carried out by vote of all the member federations of the body that governs world football.

Before, only the components of the Executive Committee exercised the vote, but the system was changed as a result of the Fifagate that uncovered bribes in the designation of Russia for the 2018 World Cup and Qatar for the 2022 World Cup.

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