Game on! Saudi Arabia to host football’s 2027 Asian Cup
No bid yet for 2030 World Cup finals but ‘everything is possible,’ Kingdom’s sports minister says
Saudi Arabia was confirmed on Wednesday as host of football’s 2027 Asian Cup — an expected prelude for a bid to stage the big one, the World Cup finals themselves. The three-time winners’ successful bid, a formality after their sole rivals India withdrew, was rubber-stamped at the Asian Football Confederation Congress in Bahrain just weeks after Qatar hosted the first World Cup in the Middle East.
“We are excited to deliver the greatest tournament in the competition’s history,” Sports Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki AlGames
Faisal said after the confirmation. “The Kingdom is transforming before our eyes and we are filled with excitement for what it will look like in 2027.”
Saudi Arabia has held talks with Egypt and Greece about a joint World Cup bid for 2030, officials said last year.
Prince Abdulaziz said there was no World Cup bid yet on the table, but added: “Everything is possible. As you can see, hosting events in Saudi Arabia is big. And it’s part of our 2030 vision.
“Anything that will come our way that we see feasible for the vision and the strategy that we have, we’ll definitely try to pursue. “Now we are focusing on 2027 because we still have to build infrastructure and so on to meet the requirements of the Asian Cup. And hopefully after that we’ll see what comes up.”
The Asian Cup adds to Saudi Arabia’s growing portfolio of major events, including the 2034 Asian Games and the 2029 Asian Winter
on artificial snow.
The Kingdom is also bidding to host the 2026 Women’s Asian Cup. “I’m sure Saudi Arabia will host a fantastic Asian Cup,” FIFA President Gianni Infantino said at the Manama congress.