HOSTING the FIFA World Cup is one of the biggest honours in world football, but earning the right to stage the tournament is a long and highly competitive process. Following the 2026 tournament in the United States, Canada and Mexico, the next two World Cup locations have already been decided. Whether you’re following the bidding process or exploring the latest World Cup markets on BETDAQ, understanding how FIFA awards hosting rights offers a fascinating insight into the politics, planning and prestige behind football’s biggest event.
The bidding regulations
FIFA runs a formal bidding process for each World Cup, set out in its own Bidding Regulations. The current version was approved by the FIFA Council in Kolkata on 27 October 2017, replacing a system FIFA president Gianni Infantino has admitted was “heavily criticised” for how past hosts were picked.
Under the reformed rules, a bid goes through three stages: a compliance check against FIFA’s entry requirements, a risk assessment covering areas such as human rights and the environment, and a technical evaluation that scores weighted criteria, from stadium capacity and transport links to projected revenue. Each stage produces a report, published before any vote takes place.
Confederations take turns
FIFA also runs a rotation policy, designed to stop one confederation hosting repeatedly. It does not fix an exact order, but it does restrict who can bid based on which regions have hosted recently.
That rule shaped both the 2030 and 2034 decisions. The 2030 tournament will be spread across Morocco, Portugal, and Spain, with three centenary matches in Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay. FIFA treated that as covering Europe, Africa, and South America, which left only the Asian and Oceanian confederations eligible to bid for 2034. That cleared the way for Saudi Arabia once Australia, the only other likely candidate, withdrew in October 2023
A vote, or a show of hands
Once the evaluation reports are in, the decision goes to the FIFA Congress, made up of all 211 member associations rather than a small executive committee. For the 2026 World Cup, that meant a recorded vote at the 68th Congress in Moscow on 13 June 2018, where the joint bid from the current tournament hosts beat a rival bid from Morocco.
Where only one bid survives, as with 2030 and 2034, the Congress confirms the host by acclamation instead of a ballot. Representatives are asked to applaud in support, and an objection has to take the form of an abstention.
The score, and the criticism it drew
FIFA’s own evaluation report gave the Saudi 2034 bid an average score of 4.2 out of 5, the highest of any bid on record, and rated it “medium risk” for human rights and “low risk” for the environment. Amnesty International and other campaign groups said that score understated the risks, and criticised FIFA for fast-tracking a process that ended up with only one credible bidder.
The next real test of the system comes with the 2038 bidding process, once the rotation rules open the door to confederations that have not hosted recently. Whether that produces a genuine contest, or another single bid confirmed by applause, depends on which federations decide to compete rather than concede early.
Article written by Craig Linton
