The President of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, recognized that Argentina is the only country that formally presented a project to organize the U-20 World Cup, with the support of its government, and admitted that the decision could be made official in the coming days.
“Today Argentina’s candidacy is the only one that was formally presented and with the endorsement of the Government. In two or three days the FIFA Bureau has to make a decision,” explained the president after a meeting with Alejandro Domínguez and Claudio Tapia at Conmebol .
The top soccer leader traveled to Paraguay to participate in a Congress of the South American entity in which he will re-elect Domínguez as president and which also served to finalize details of Argentina’s candidacy to host said competition.
Although officialization is lacking, he anticipated that “Argentina has very good chances of being the organizer”, something that Domínguez also supported: “Infantino knows that Argentina has my vote. Because he proposed, because I believe in his potential and because you have to have everything ready for May. They have it,” he said.
He also explained that Sergio Massa, Minister of Economy and Matías Lammens, Minister of Tourism and Sports gave the government guarantees required by the organization and the formal announcement would be next weekend or Monday.
Indonesia was withdrawn from the competition after they decided not to host the Israeli delegation, given that the bilateral relationship between the two countries has been broken for years.
“Israel is in favor of Argentina being the host, it deserves it as world champion. It is a very beautiful and large country, with excellent facilities. Hopefully they can also organize the 2030 World Cup,” said the Israeli Ambassador to Argentina, Eyal Sela.
For its part, FIFA admitted that it will announce the new venue “as soon as possible” and maintained that “the dates of the tournament remain unchanged for the moment.”
