FIFA President Sepp Blatter Joseph S. Blatter is currently in Colombia for the World Youth Cup, and when he arrived on Wednesday he made an exciting announcement for Argentines and Uruguayans. The two countries’ FAs have already put forward their formal candidacy to joint host the 2030 World Cup. Whilst the bulk of the event would inevitably be hosted by Argentina, this would allow the final – in the centenary year of the competition – to be played in Montevideo’s Estadio Centenario, the venue for the final of the inaugural tournament in 1930.
After announcing on the 30th May that they planned to bid to host the event jointly, Argentina and Uruguay received the unanimous backing of their fellow CONMEBOL nations to bid for the 2030 World Cup, and submitted that bid formally to FIFA on the day Blatter landed in Colombia. He was presented with the bid document as well as a shirt made up from the two nations’ national team shirts with the phrase ‘history unites – sport too’ included in the presentation box. That first ever World Cup final was of course played between Uruguay and Argentina, with the hosts running out 4-2 winners.
If you want to support the bid, and you read Spanish, you can click here for a number of ways of helping it gain greater publicity. Or you can sign the visitors’ book-cum-petition here.
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Top photo by me, via Flickr. Shirt photo taken from ole.clarin.com
Hasta El Gol Siempre 