48 hours. 2 stadiums. 0.4 points. El Mundo’s sources point to strange changes in the evaluation of the candidates to host the 2030 World Cup. After its sudden modification, Vigo dropped from 11th to 12th place, dropping out from the list of hosts.

A fight for points

Dropping one place in the table can sometimes be a death sentence in football. Although the spectre of relegation does not haunt Celta Vigo this season, by dropping one place Vigo has also dropped out of the list of hosts of the 2030 World Cup. On Sunday El Mundo managed to do what the mayor of the olive city has been asking the Spanish federation (RFEF) to do for months: publish the scores of all the candidates.

According to the newspaper, a team led by Maria Tato met in Las Rozas on 25 June to assess the candidate stadiums to host the World Cup. Here we go. Let's enter the values into Excel and see what we get. The first test out of the 800 we will do until the results are correct, Tato said.

However, as it turned out, the federation representatives did not understand the criteria proposed by FIFA, which caused arguments and hesitation, and as a result the meeting was significantly prolonged. Once those present had analysed each of the candidates, the results collected in Excel were as follows:

FIFA awarded Spain 11 stadiums, which meant that Vigo were going into the 2030 World Cup host list, contrary to San Sebastian, who were losing to the olive city by 0.0778 points. But not 48 hours had passed since the end of the meeting when the results changed.

© La Cámara del Celta | Vigo's project to adapt Balaidos for the 2030 World Cup called for a capacity of 43,000 seats, including 10,000 temporary chairs.

World Cup death sentence

The original version of the final scores was received the following day by email by then vice-president and now president of the RFEF, Rafael Louzán. In the message, Maria Tato explained to him that the information should not be made public and that the team was considering modifying the spreadsheet. As she also reported, Vigo owed its score to the Spanish government, which insisted on including a strategicity criterion. This was to give preference only to the olive city because of its proximity to Portugal. It should be noted that the government is co-founded by the PSOE party, to which the mayor of Vigo belongs, meanwhile Louzán, who comes from the opposition PP, is in conflict with the government.

A day later (on June 27), Maria Tato received a second spreadsheet in which Anoeta's score in the consider the level of intervention to be carried out subsection jumped from 15 to 20 points. As a result, Anoeta's final score jumped to 10.6026 points, 0.4 more than Balaidos had. The scores of all the other arenas - apart from RCDE Stadium, which jumped to 7th place at the expense of La Rosaleda - did not change.

On 28 June, a second version of the scoring went to the Executive Committee for candidacy for the 2030 World Cup. On 19 July, the RFEF officially announced the list of hosts, which did not include Vigo.

© RFEF | Rafael Louzán (pictured in the middle) refused to publish the scores in the past, arguing that the RFEF is not a public administration that has to give this data.

Vigo reacts

On Monday, the mayor of Vigo, Abel Caballero, appeared on TV Galega, where, reacting to reports by El Mundo, he called the changes in scoring and its cover-up unacceptable obscurantism. Someone has to explain to us who made this decision, how they made it, where, where the meetings were... everything. - he said.

Caballero also did not hesitate to attack the president of the federation. I don't know if it has to do with the fact that Louzán was president of the Pontevedra Provincial Council and lost it because of the election results in Vigo. I don't know. But in any case it is clear that there is a clear position against this city. Therefore, the president of the Federation must give an explanation today. [...] Today! he demanded. So far, Louzán has not commented on this situation.

However, El Mundo reported that, in response to their material, the RFEF promised an analysis of the decision and has requested Maria Tato to explain how the decision was made. However, it defends itself stating that those responsible for preparing the scores ended their collaboration with the federation with the change of president, and that there were a total of five versions of the scores as they were gradually adapted to FIFA's requirements. As assured by its representatives, RFEF is working to include both Vigo and Valencia in the list of World Cup hosts.

© Xornal Vigo | The mayor of Vigo accused the Spanish federation of manipulating the results and demanded an explanation. In the picture, he shows Monday's edition of El Mundo.