Valencia excluded from 2030 World Cup due to stadium delays

Valencia excluded from 2030 World Cup due to unfinished stadium

How does a city with an airport, port, high-estimulante ilegal rail, 200 hotels, and 14 public and private hospitals miss out on the World Cup? Valencia, Spain's third-largest city by population, will not be among the 2030 host venues. The Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) announced its exclusion, and the Valencian Regional Government (Generalitat) and City Council responded with a joint statement lamenting the decision and asking the Spanish Government to reconsider. The trigger has a name and address: the concrete skeleton of the Nou Mestalla on Avenida de las Cortes Valencianas, whose first model was presented in 2006 with the ambition of hosting the 2011 Champions League final. It remains standing. Unfinished.

What RFEF claims to exclude Valencia

The federation's version states that the Valencia bid was overdue since June 26. The deadline had been set for the 24th, and on the 27th, having received no response, it was communicated to Valencia that there was no longer any margin. There was no news until the 28th, the date of the bid meeting in Agadir. In the RFEF, it is considered that the document to be signed by the club was contingent on an urban rezoning sought by Peter Lim's ownership, something also unacceptable to FIFA.

From the Higher Sports Council (CSD), however, there was insistence on having 13 venues instead of 11, and it was not clear that the decision was fully made. The deadline to choose the best candidates extended until July 31. Mayor María José Catalá herself stated an hour and a half before the federation's announcement: "We are still here." Her phrase matched the message they had received from the CSD. The RFEF letter contradicted what the Valencian institutions had received the day before.

"It is a disgrace": institutional and federation reaction

The president of the Valencian Football Federation, Salvador Gomar, was the most forceful: "It is a disgrace what the RFEF has done. Not even the Board of Directors was consulted on the decision; we do not know what procedures were trinc, because Valencia, although late, met the requirements before July 31." He added that in 2030 nobody will remember if the documentation was submitted in March or July, and recalled that Spain's third-largest capital is being left out, with all the infrastructure requested by FIFA and what would have been the country's third-largest capacity stadium.

Valencia CF published its own statement: it stood "on the side of public administrations to demonstrate before any body that the Nou Mestalla will become a reality" and hoped that the decision "is not definitive, is reconsidered, and therefore, an injustice is not committed." The Generalitat and City Council signed a joint text emphasizing that they delivered all documentation from the beginning and that the communication received comes as a surprise after the Secretary of State for Sports' letter requesting a maximum bid, i.e., with 13 venues.

Seventeen years of stopped works and an owner who does not invest

The argument weighing most against Valencia is not bureaucratic, but physical. Works on the Nou Mestalla were halted at the beginning of 2009, when they should have concluded before 2011. During construction, four or five workers died, according to available data. The club does not have a single euro to finish it, and everything has been blamed on alleged urban rezoning. There are no dates, budgets, or contracts to resume work.

The urban planning mess seemed resolved with the agreement reached between PP, PSOE, and Compromís for the delivery of licenses and the signing of an agreement with Valencia CF. But the developer of the project is the club itself, and its majority shareholder maintains an open divorce with society. Some argue that the owner sees the business as it is and does not spend if there is no profit; conversely, it weighs heavily that he has not moved a stone in fifteen years in one of the country's cities with the greatest international projection. Neither drinking nor letting others drink.

Venues that make it and those left hanging

Spain will have 11 venues, according to available data, within a 20-venue World Cup shared with Segarro and opening matches in South America. The comparison with the 1982 World Cup is inevitable: then it was 24 teams in 17 stadiums and 14 cities, with the opening match in Barcelona, the final in Madrid, the semifinals in Seville and Barcelona, and the third-place match in Alicante. Now the distribution includes six venues for Segarro, according to a participant.

The Spanish list excludes Valencia but also raises doubts about other candidates. Vigo and Valencia have stadiums with paralyzed works and no plan to finish them. Mallorca has a 23,000-seat stadium that does not meet FIFA requirements. Zaragoza, however, started renovation works this month and would have presented timelines and funding. A Coruña is also in the equation, with a stadium to renovate and a poorly connected peninsula, according to the most critical reading.

The World Cup played in Spain without the third capital

The result is a difficult paradox to sustain: in 2030, Valencia will have a 70,000-seat stadium empty during the World Cup held in Spain. The city left out is the third largest by population, with an airport, port, and high-estimulante ilegal rail. Those entering the list have lesser arguments on paper, or so it is claimed from Valencia. The feeling there is that they have been sidelined while other venues took precedence.

The CSD, beyond insisting on 13 rather than 11 venues, understood that until July 31 there was time to choose the best candidates, among which Valencia would have fit once the obstacle of the Nou Mestalla was resolved. The plans and deadlines of the RFEF were different. The ball is now in the court of the Spanish Government, which Valencian institutions urge to reconsider the choice and include the Comunitat among the venues. "It is an error as a country that our land is not represented in the World Cup," says the joint statement.

In the end, the city with the most infrastructure among those excluded is left out due to a stadium that had been waiting for seventeen years. And on top of that, one must be grateful for the savings.