Saudi World Cup: What does it mean for football?
The Athletic FC Podcast
The Athletic
4.0 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 2 November 2023
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Following Australia's withdrawal to host the 2034 World Cup on Tuesday, Saudi Arabia has been left as the sole bidder to stage world football's showpiece event.
Matt Slater and Adam Crafton join Ayo Akinwolere to analyse how Saudi Arabia became the only bidder for the tournament, what benefit the Gulf state hosting the tournament brings to FIFA and the impact it could have on the wider football world.
Plus the panel debate the discussion around Human Rights, following the scrutiny the Qatar World Cup came under, before debating the impact it could have for the Saudi Pro League over the next 11 years before the tournament is played.
Produced by Guy Clarke
Executive Producer: Adey Moorhead
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Athletic. |
| 0:05.8 | On Tuesday morning, Australia withdrew their intention to host the 2034 World Cup, |
| 0:11.4 | leaving Saudi Arabia as the sole bidder for football showpiece event. |
| 0:15.8 | Argentina, champion Delmundo, champions of the world's greatest game. |
| 0:24.7 | With 11 years to go until the circus comes to town, |
| 0:27.8 | what does this mean for Saudi Arabia, FIFA, and the wider world of football? |
| 0:32.4 | I'm Ayahu Akimulare. |
| 0:33.5 | Welcome to the Athletic Football Podcast. |
| 0:42.3 | Thank you. Welcome to the Athletic Football Podcast. With us for this one, we have the Athletics, Adam Crafton, as well as senior football news reporter Matt Slater as well. |
| 0:48.9 | So Saudi Arabia have ended up with a 2034 World Cup. |
| 0:53.2 | What happened? |
| 0:53.9 | Why did Australia step back, Matt? |
| 0:55.6 | They realised there was no point standing against Saudi Arabia. The whole thing has been stage |
| 1:01.3 | managed for Saudi Arabia to get 2034. So the beginning of October, we got this big announcement |
| 1:07.3 | that 2030 was completely sorted. The main bit of the tournament being in |
| 1:12.9 | Spain, Portugal and Morocco, but with these, you know, three games in South America to mark |
| 1:19.4 | the centenary of the 1930 World Cup. And everyone looks like, you know, well, that's a lot of news. |
| 1:24.8 | Oh, and by the way, here's the process for picking 2034. Now, it is important |
| 1:29.6 | to remember that 2030 bit because we are supposed to be now rotating through football's |
| 1:35.1 | confederation, six confederations in football connected to the continents. 26, the next one is |
| 1:43.0 | the United States, Canada and Mexico. So that ticks off ConkerCath. |
| 1:47.9 | And then we do 2030, which is Europe and Africa. Oh, sorry, also in 2030 you got South America. |
... |
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