Along with Spain and Portugal, Ukraine has entered the race to host the 2030 World Cup. The three soccer federations of the three nations met at UEFA headquarters on Wednesday to officially announce their alliance.
“This is the dream of millions of Ukrainian fans. The dream of people who survived the horrors of war or are still in the occupied territories, over which the Ukrainian flag will surely fly soon,” said Andriy Pavelko, president of Ukraine’s soccer federation, at a news conference Wednesday.
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He said that Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, had approved the action. Since February, Russia has been invading Ukraine completely. It was not specified how many games will be played in Ukraine or in which locations, however, the Olympic Stadium in Kyiv served as the site of both the 2012 and 2018 Champions League finals.
“Now it’s not the Iberian bid, it’s the European bid,” Spain’s soccer federation president, Luis Rubiales, said at the news conference, according to the Associated Press. “Together we represent the power of transformation football has in society.”
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In June 2021, Spain and Portugal previously declared their joint bid. Competition for the new proposal comes from a group effort by Egypt, Greece, and Saudi Arabia as well as a South American bid by Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay, and Chile. In 2024, FIFA will vote to determine the host.