Once the World Cup in Qatar is over, it is time to activate the next candidacies. The Government has just offered its first estimate of the economic impact of a possible joint World Cup between Spain, Portugal and Ukraine in 2030, which would require investments and expenses of 1,430 million euros, which would place the total cost at low band of similar events.
The Council of Ministers on Tuesday approved a grant of 7.5 million euros to launch the Iberian candidacy for the World Cup, without offering financial details. Yesterday, the royal decree was published in the BOE in which it includes the aid to the Royal Spanish Football Federation and in which, now, it justifies its concession with a statement of reasons with economic data about the project.
In the decree, the Government resorts to the classic estimates of wealth creation to ensure that, compared to the expected expenses, 5,120 million euros of additional GDP and 82,513 full-time jobs could be generated in Spain with the Iberian World Cup.
For every million euros of investment cost and organization of the World Cup, 78 jobs will be created in Spain, he says. In Portugal there would be 26,000 additional jobs and another 1 billion in terms of GDP.
The total cost of the event is broken down at a rate of 750 million euros in global investments in infrastructures and 683.2 million in organization expenses. "Spain has a multitude of stadiums that are compatible with FIFA standards, being able to focus efforts on the infrastructure that is needed for the organization of the event, which is not necessarily sports," he says.
If compared with others, the amount handled would place the World Cup in Spain, Portugal and Ukraine among the cheap ones. According to data from Statista, Qatar has invested 200,000 million dollars in its recent World Cup, the most expensive in history, ahead of Brazil's 15,000 million in 2014.
That of Spain would be the eighth in the classification by cost, behind the 2,300 million of France in 1998 and ahead of the 500 million of the United States in 1994, which is the cheapest documented to date.
The royal decree published yesterday says that the World Cup would have a multiplier effect on the investments made, to the point that each euro spent on investment and organization for the development of the 2030 World Cup would generate 4.28 euros of GDP for Spain. and 1.32 euros of tax revenue.
It is also expected that the tourist spending of World Cup visitors will exceed 5,000 million euros and that it will be distributed throughout the national territory, as it falls on venues, sub-venues and training centers.
FIFA is expected to approve in the first quarter of 2023 the essential rules for the development of the 2030 World Cup and set the conditions that each of the federations or countries that wish to present their candidacy for the organization of the event must meet. The Government estimates that the final designation of the World Cup venue will be announced in 2024.
The 2026 World Cup will be held in three countries, which are the United States, Canada and Mexico. To date, the biggest sporting events organized by Spain have been the Barcelona Olympic Games in 1992, the 1964 UEFA Euro Cup and the 1982 World Cup, indicates the royal decree published today.
