Miniblog - Extranational and Extracontinental Football

The 2030 World Cup will be held in six countries across three continents as a last gasp attempt by Fifa to appease a large South American bid. True, only three matches will be held in South America, and yes, they're the first three, and yes, it's largely an afterthought and possibly a plot to make Saudi Arabia 2034 a reality, but that's beside the point. 

Funnily enough, a similar scenario could have happened should Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Greece had hosted the World Cup, and quite frankly, all of these bids are fairly ludicrous. Indeed, what is it with all these sports competitions being spread out amongst various countries and continents? It's not like Euro 2020 was that great a success, what with fans being ferried from Baku to Rome, from St Petersburg to Seville. Arguably England had it the best, with just one match outside the UK. 

Football's not the only sport to be ridiculous like this, to be fair. The NFL likes holding matches outside the US, for example. And perhaps this isn't a bad thing - more fans can watch their teams in their home country, so they get to travel less. 

I suppose it only truly gets bad when the centennial World Cup sees three countries be delivered an absolute pittance in matches, which can't be good for the fans or the players. The whole point of an international tournament is that fans are gathered in one place together. Imagine if they start hosting the Olympics across various different countries, let alone cities - that would be condemned by many. So why not condemn other tournaments for this silly tournament sharing?


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