The Estadio da Luz will host the semi-finals of the 2030 FIFA World Cup.

The Da Luz Stadium in Lisbon will host one of the semi-finals of the 2023 FIFA World Cup, the President of the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF), Fernando Gomes, announced this Thursday at a conference dedicated to the competition.

The director said that the candidacy put forward by Portugal along with Spain and Morocco, despite being the only one, still requires a “positive assessment” from FIFA and that a decision should be announced on December 10 or 11, 2024.

Fernando Gomes, speaking at the conference “2030 FIFA World Cup: Anatomy of a Candidacy” held by the Faculty of Law of the Catholic University of Lisbon, confirmed that the final of the competition cannot be held in Portugal, given the requirement for stadiums with a capacity of more than 80 thousand spectators, but which are expected to holding one of the semi-finals.

“Portugal will host the semi-finals together with a country that will not host the final,” Fernando Gomes said, adding that FIFA requires the stadium to have at least 60,000 seats.

Among the three stadiums that will host the competition (Estadio da Luz and Estádio José Alvalade in Lisbon and Estádio do Dragao in Porto), only Benfica’s stadium exceeds this capacity.

Fernando Gomes says that the event is six years away and says it is too early to talk about the allocation of the games, and recalls that for the 2026 World Cup (a joint organization of Canada, Mexico and the United States of America) these were newly allocated.

Regarding investment, Fernando Gomes noted that “in Portugal there are three modern stadiums that have already received improvements thanks to the Champions finals they hosted in 2014, 2020 and 2021”, so it is clear that this sports ground will not big.

However, it is clear that both the Portuguese state and the councils of Lisbon and Porto will have to make this commitment, especially since one of the pillars of the candidacy is environmental sustainability.

“Work is underway in three countries with an external consultant so that this World Cup can become an example in terms of sustainable development. Spain has a very large railway line. Morocco already has a high-speed train. there are still doubts that the high-speed line [ferroviária] by then construction between Porto and Lisbon will be completed. But work is underway on this and other areas,” he said.

At the same level, Fernando Gomes said that several agreements need to be signed, namely on health, security, mobility infrastructure and visas for volunteers.

“This is very intense work. There are contracts for three countries. Each country must take its responsibility,” he assured.

People began to talk about this candidacy at the 2018 World Cup, when Portugal and Spain clashed to the final 3-3 on the field of the Fisht Olympic Stadium in Sochi.

“It all started in 2018, during the World Cup, in Russia, in the Portugal-Spain game. In that game, sitting next to Luis Rubiales (then president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation), they thought about the possibility of doing it in Luis Rubiales thought it would be interesting to expand the candidacy of Morocco, which was part of the same group,” he recalled, recalling that the original idea envisaged a joint organization of Spain, Portugal and Ukraine, but later Morocco also became a candidate due to its proximity.

Coincidentally, three countries competed in Group B of the 2018 World Cup, which was ultimately led by Spain, followed by Portugal and Morocco in last place. The ease of communication between everyone proved crucial, since the capitals (Madrid, Lisbon and Rabat) are about an hour away by plane.

Portugal, Spain and Morocco will host the 2030 FIFA World Cup, FIFA announced last October.

Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay will also host three 2030 FIFA World Cup matches to celebrate the centenary of the competition, which first played in Uruguay in 1930.