Indonesia and Australia are considering a joint bid against Saudi Arabia

The 2034 FIFA World Cup should no longer be hosted by Saudi Arabia. A week after the Saudi candidacy was officially announced, Indonesian Federation President Eric Tohir announced on Tuesday that Indonesia would hold talks with Australia. A vision for jointly organizing the 2034 World Cup.

On 4 October, after Spain, Morocco and Portugal were appointed as the hosts of the 2030 edition (along with the organization of three matches in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay), the International Football Federation (FIFA) launched a call for applications. For the 2034 tournament, based on the principle of rotation of the continents, the Asian and Oceanic confederations are holding the rope to organize this edition.

Minutes after the call, Saudi Arabia, which had already positioned itself to host the 2030 World Cup, confirmed its candidacy for 2034. The Saudis immediately gained the support of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). They are favorites to host the tournament.

Like Qatar in 2022, the country wants to turn this World Cup into a powerful instrument of soft power. In a press release published on X (formerly Twitter), the Saudi Federation announces that “It plans to deliver world-class competition and will draw inspiration from Saudi Arabia’s ongoing social and economic transformation.”

“Open” to work with other countries

Mr. Dohir’s comments suggest that Saudi Arabia will not be acting alone. According to the Indonesian confederation president, a joint bid between his country and Australia has been under discussion since the last FIFA conference organized in March in Rwanda. “At that point the Australian side said ‘let’s go together’ and I said ‘ok’ and we’re in,” A former owner of Inter Milan (from 2013 to 2018), he is also Indonesia’s Minister of Public Enterprise.

Backed by Joko Widodo, Indonesian President Erik Dohir said discussions between the two countries had accelerated as FIFA’s October 31, 2023 deadline to formalize a bid was fast approaching. The Australian federation, for its part, confirmed a week ago that it is working on a plan to organize this World Cup, not to mention a joint plan with the Southeast Asian country.

Mr. Dohir said to himself “open” Alliances with other countries such as Malaysia, Singapore or New Zealand. However, membership of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has to prove to FIFA that 1 is such a tragedy.^R October 2022, at Kanjuruhan Stadium in Malang, Java, never to happen again: 135 people died in a stampede there.