San Sebastian, Vigo and the murky selection process behind Spain's World Cup 2030 host cities

New York Times

27-03-2025

San Sebastian is one of Spain's most popular tourist destinations, renowned for its 18 Michelin stars and picturesque, curving La Concha beach.
Vigo is a historic port city on the country's Atlantic coast with an industrial past and a growing tourist industry.
Both have deep football traditions and want to host games at the 2030 World Cup, which will be held in Spain, Portugal and Morocco.
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And both have now been swept up in the latest political battle within Spanish football: Vigo mayor Abel Caballero has accused Spanish football federation (RFEF) president Rafael Louzan of manipulating the process of selecting venues for the tournament to deliberately exclude the Galician city in favour of San Sebastian.
So, what's going on?
On Monday, Spanish newspaper El Mundo published a report based on leaked federation documents and emails which it claimed showed rankings of the different potential host cities for the 2030 World Cup, compiled by the federation's own staff.
#Exclusiva La Federación Española de Fútbol se reunió el 25 de junio para puntuar las 11 sedes del Mundial 2030. Escogió a Balaídos con 10,2 puntos en última posición. Dos días después manipuló la clasificación para mejorar la puntuación de Anoeta y dejar fuera a Vigo. EL MUNDO… pic.twitter.com/4TdpKsBfzL
— Esteban Urreiztieta (@eurreiztieta) March 24, 2025
One document dated 25 June 2024 showed Vigo and its Balaidos stadium (10.2004 points) in 11th place in the internal rankings. San Sebastian and its Anoeta stadium were just behind (with 10.1226 points) in 12th — and therefore excluded.
The report says this document was emailed to senior federation figures — including Louzan, who was then an RFEF vice-president and president of the Galician regional federation.
Two days later, the report suggests the results of that ranking were modified, with San Sebastian gaining points and ending up on 10.6026. That made it one of the 11 chosen venues, with Vigo excluded.
The second list of 11 cities was sent to FIFA on June 29. It then featured in the joint candidacy which was ratified by a FIFA congress last December, with Spain, Portugal and Morocco unchallenged as tournament hosts — but that was not the final word on which cities and stadiums would host games in 2030.
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A further El Mundo report included leaked audio from a meeting supposedly held at RFEF's Las Rozas headquarters on June 25 — with Maria Tato, then director of Spain's World Cup 2030 candidacy, present with Fernando Sanz, who was also part of the three-person committee charged with choosing the 11 Spanish stadiums.
'OK, we'll keep putting numbers into Excel and see what we get,' says Tato in the audio, with laughter heard in the background. 'We'll keep going until it works out for us.'
#Exclusiva La esperpéntica reunión en la que se eligieron las sedes del Mundial 2030: "Vamos a meter valores hasta que nos cuadre el resultado"
✍️ Esteban Urreiztieta pic.twitter.com/rlXVCI4crd
— EL MUNDO (@elmundoes) March 24, 2025
An outraged Mayor Caballero held a press conference on Monday at which he brandished a copy of the El Mundo report and claimed Louzan was responsible for the changes to the criteria that saw San Sebastian chosen instead.
🗣️Esto es gravísimo, exigimos que nos expliquen quién lo cambió, por qué y con qué criterios ❌ pic.twitter.com/mudbgaB5xn
— Abel Caballero (@abelcaballero) March 24, 2025
'Vigo fell off the list 48 hours after Louzan got it,' Caballero said. 'Vigo disappears and is no longer a World Cup host city. If they changed the selection criteria, it's really serious. I don't trust any of it — I demand Louzan comes out immediately to explain.'
The mayor suggested Louzan had a personal motive to stop Vigo hosting games. The RFEF president was president of the provincial Council of Pontevedra (of which Vigo is part) for 14 years until 2015, representing the conservative Partido Popular, rival to Cabellero's socialist party.
'I don't know if this is because Louzan lost his job running the provincial council of Pontevedra because of the results in Vigo,' Caballero said this week. 'It's clear that there's a position against this city.'
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RFEF sources — who, like all those consulted for this story, requested anonymity to speak freely to The Athletic — deny Louzan being involved in any manipulation of the rankings. They say it is not credible that a former Galician federation president would want to stop a city from his own region hosting World Cup games.
The federation sources also deny that any manipulation took place — telling The Athletic that the documents published by El Mundo are just some of many different drafts compiled during the process of compiling the World Cup bid book. They said the audio was taken out of context.
But the idea of Vigo losing its spot has been floated by Louzan since he took over as RFEF president. In late January, speaking on the El Cafelito de Josep Pedrerol podcast, he said, 'Vigo is fighting to be a host city but its capacity will be 27,000 spectators and FIFA requires 43,000.'
Vigo is a city of 300,000 on Spain's northwest Atlantic coast — the largest by population in the region of Galicia.
It is a historically huge fishing port, home of much of the region's traditional industrial base, including automobile manufacturing, and now an increasingly important tourism hub.
Celta Vigo's municipally-owned Balaidos stadium was one of Spain's 17 host stadiums at the 1982 World Cup. A renovation currently under way will increase capacity from the current 20,700 figure to the 27,000 mentioned by Louzan. But Caballero has pointed out that, in September 2022, he announced a project to increase capacity to 43,000 so it could host 2030 World Cup games.
San Sebastian is the capital of the Basque province of Gipuzkoa and has a population of just under 200,000. Called Donostia in the Basque language, it is one of Spain's most beautiful and most visited cities. In the early 20th century, Spanish royals spent their summers there and these days it hosts an internationally renowned film festival.
Real Sociedad's Anoeta stadium first opened in 1993. An €80million ($86m; £67m at current exchange rates) redevelopment completed in 2019 removed an unloved athletics track, expanded its capacity to 40,000 and modernised the VIP and media facilities required to host high-profile games, including the 2020 Women's Champions League final.
FIFA required 20 venues to be included in bids to host the tournament. After negotiations between the three federations, this was broken down as 11 stadiums for Spain, six for Morocco and three for Portugal in the official bid book presented last summer.
The bid also allowed for the first three matches to be played in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay as part of the centenary celebrations of the first World Cup in 1930.
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FIFA has its own criteria for evaluating bids — with scores given for metrics including stadiums, accommodation, transport and other infrastructure.
The RFEF did not use these criteria when evaluating venues and the metrics they did use have not been shared publicly.
The Spanish government wanted a bigger role in choosing the host cities and suggested points be added for proximity to the two other host countries, which would have helped Vigo as it is close to the border with Portugal.
Instead, the federation's final calculations included extra points for stadiums which did not need extensive construction work. Anoeta's recent renovation helped San Sebastian clinch the final spot.
The 11 stadiums mentioned in last July's announcement were the Bernabeu and Metropolitano in Madrid, the Camp Nou and RCDE Stadium in Barcelona, San Mames in Bilbao, La Cartuja in Seville, La Rosaleda in Malaga, the Estadio de Gran Canaria in Las Palmas, La Romareda in Zaragoza, Riazor in La Coruna and Anoeta in San Sebastian.
Four others had put themselves forward to host games but did not make the cut — Vigo's Balaidos, Valencia's New Mestalla, Gijon's El Molinon and Murcia's Nueva Condomina.
When the 'bid book' was made public, the headline city to lose out (besides Vigo) was Valencia, Spain's third-biggest city.
The issue in Valencia was uncertainty over the status of their New Mestalla stadium, where construction had been stalled for 15 years and there was no commitment in place when the bid was submitted for the ground to be finished by 2030.
Since being elected as RFEF president last December, Louzan has moved quickly to stamp his authority on the World Cup plans.
Two of the three executives who put together the bid book were fired, including former Real Madrid player and La Liga executive Sanz. The third commission member, Tato, had been reassigned to other duties, and then on Wednesday she reportedly left. Federation sources said an internal enquiry was being undertaken into how the 11 stadia were chosen for the 'bid book'.
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Maria Jose Rienda, a former socialist politician and world champion skier, is now heading the RFEF's 2030 planning.
In early January, work finally restarted at the New Mestalla stadium in Valencia and a modern, 70,074-seater ground is now slated to be completed by 2027. Later that month, Louzan visited the works and pledged the stadium would host games at the World Cup.
'This great city and region cannot be left out of the World Cup,' Louzan said. 'We'll work on that, and we've already made progress.'
One possibility is Atletico Madrid's Metropolitano stadium dropping out to make way for the New Mestalla. Ceding the Metropolitano to FIFA for two months during the summer could potentially cost Atletico €20m in income from concerts and other events. RFEF and Atletico sources did not discount this possibility when it was put to them.
Both the RFEF and the Spanish government now want Spain to somehow go up to 13 venues for the 2030 tournament — which would allow both Vigo and Valencia to host games without any ground having to drop out.
The total number of teams who will play at the 2030 World Cup has yet to be confirmed. Earlier this month, FIFA discussed a proposal to increase the number of countries to 64, 16 more than 2026's tournament in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
There are still some years of debate and politicking to go before final decisions are made on which cities and stadiums actually host games when the tournament comes around.
The initial bid book accepted by FIFA in 2018 for the 2026 World Cup listed 23 potential venues for games. It was not until June 2022 that the 16 host cities were selected, and not until February 2024 before the final breakdown of games was confirmed, including the final being confirmed for New York/New Jersey.
That process was shrouded in secrecy — and the final calls were made by FIFA president Gianni Infantino and a very small circle of the organisation's most senior executives.
Something similar looks likely for 2030. Sources familiar with the process point out expensive renovations, required to meet FIFA's stadium specifications in cities including La Coruna and Zaragoza, have not begun and that some U.S. cities dropped out of the process between those federations' bid book being accepted and the final selections of host venues for 2026.
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Another factor for negotiations that are sure to be tough includes the hosting of the opening game and especially the final. The RFEF wants the decider to be held at the Bernabeu while the Moroccan federation has indicated it could be played at a new, 115,000-capacity Grand Stade Hassan II stadium being built in Casablanca for the tournament.
(Top photos: Getty Images)