Four cities in Spain at risk of losing World Cup host status as FIFA look to slash venues

Spain and the Royal Spanish Football Federation have been looking to leave behind the controversy of Luis Rubiales’ tenure as president, but the incumbent Rafael Louzan is already being faced with some tricky situations.

Despite making peace with La Liga and President Javier Tebas, whom he has appointed as a part of his board at the RFEF, the difficulty was raised in the new year for Louzan. Part of the infamous Dani Olmo and Pau Victor registration case, Louzan decided to side with Tebas and La Liga, straining relations with Barcelona and his counterpart Joan Laporta. He also has a court case concluding shortly which will determine whether he can indeed remain in power, or if he will be suspended from office for seven years due to a previous perversion of justice charge while he was in politics.

The next hot potatoe is the 2030 World Cup venues. Fruit of FIFA trying to hold a World Cup in six countries, currently there are 20 host cities across three continents, a number they believe to be too high, as per Cadena SER. As a result, the governing body will attempt to slash the number of venues, with four Spanish cities at risk of losing their host status.

Currently Spain have 11 venues ratified, with 4 of them at risk. The stadiums and cities that could miss out are: La Rosaleda in Malaga, Riazor in A Coruna, Anoeta in Donostia-San Sebastian, and La Romareda in Zaragoza.

They go on to say that the RFEF will do that they can to ensure Mestalla in Valencia is one of the venues, and that is likely to mean at least one or two of those four grounds are likely to miss out. Mestalla was not initially included due to the lack of progress on finishing the Nou Mestalla, but with work now underway again, it is scheduled to be ready in time to host games in 2030.