Despite such a long time until the 2030 World Cup, FIFA will visit Portugal at the end of May to carry out technical inspections of stadiums built 21 years ago. One of the venues is even set to be the arena for the World Cup semi-final.

FIFA inspection

On May 26 and 27, FIFA will carry out visits to the three largest stadiums that are likely to host football fans in the Portuguese leg of the tournament. According to Tribuna Expresso, a team made up of various technical officials from world football's governing body will travel to the two largest cities to assess the arenas that, in terms of capacity, could be candidates to co-host the World Cup.

They are referring to the stadiums of Portugal's three biggest clubs:

• Estádio da Luz, home of Benfica Lisbon;
• Estádio José Alvalade, the arena of 2023/24 national champion Sporting Lisbon;
• Estádio do Dragão, the dragon venue from the city of Porto.

On April 4, the president of the Portuguese Football Federation, Fernando Gomes, announced that one of the arenas would host the semi-final of the competition. “Portugal will have a semi-final together with a country that will not host the final” the federation president said, adding that FIFA requires the venue to have at least 60,000 seats, so the only candidate for the venue is the ‘stadium of light’ in Lisbon.

© Grzegorz Kaliciak

Major tournaments in Portugal

Portugal's venues already have a history of major events. These stadiums hosted the Euro 2004 matches. With the largest capacity, Estádio da Luz hosted the final of that competition and 2014's Champions League final was held here, which saw one of Real Madrid's many remontadas.

Sporting's stadium, in addition to being able to seat more than 50,000 spectators, can boast that it hosted five Euro matches in 2004, and less than a year later the local green-whites faced CSKA Moscow at Estádio José Alvalade in the UEFA Cup final. The Portuguese national team has also played its international matches here on several occasions.

Estádio do Dragão hosted the opening match of Euro 2004 here, as well as three group matches and a semi-final. Each of these stadiums was built before the tournament was held in Portugal, with the inaugural matches taking place in 2003.

© Grzegorz Kaliciak

100 years since first championships

In 2030, it will be exactly 100 years since the first championship, which was won by the then host, Uruguay. For this very reason, the Iberian-Moroccan tournament will kick off at Estadio Centenario in Montevideo. The full schedule of likely stadiums for the world jubilee competition can be found in a separate article.