The Excel of shame: scandal over the selection of the Spanish 2030 World Cup venues

BarcelonaThe 2030 Men's World Cup, which Spain will host alongside Portugal and Morocco, has been tainted by information fromThe World regarding the host selection process. According to this information, the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) manipulated the scoring criteria to prevent the city of Vigo from being among the selected cities, prioritizing San Sebastián. The RFEF defends its good management, but the director of the bid submitted her resignation this Wednesday.

A few days ago, the content of an audio recording allegedly recorded at the meeting of June 25, 2024, was made public. María Tato, director of the bid, spoke with former player Fernando Sanz, a member of the host selection committee, to assess the values required by FIFA. Each venue was scored in different categories, depending on whether the stadium needed renovations, capacity, experience with major events, or transport connections. However, the audio reveals that the way the venues were voted on was not very serious. There's a moment when Tato says: "Let's try to enter values into Excel to see what we have left. This is the first of 800 tests we'll do until we get the result right."

The disorientation of some of those present is evident in the document, while Tato even jokes about how the classification will be modified. Other people participated in the meeting, such as Juana Soares, from the strategy area, and Federation employee Marta Alcalde. "We'll give scores and that's it," says Tato, to which Sanz responds: "The ones you give will be fine." During the conversations, those present discuss how to rate the venues in accordance with FIFA requirements, and are particularly puzzled about how to rate each venue's connection. Speaking of A Coruña airport, Tato states: "It's small. It doesn't have a ton of connections with Morocco." Shortly after, he adds: "Isn't it true that A Coruña has a train? Well, we'll give them a 10."

From this meeting came an initial list of eleven of their own, in which Vigo was eleventh, ahead of San Sebastián. Balaídos had a score of 10.2004 points, slightly above Anoeta. But 48 hours later, when the list was made public, the Basque city had surpassed the Galician city without any record of any meeting of this committee. San Sebastián's stadium then had 10.6026 points, surpassing Vigo.

Abel Caballero, mayor of Vigo, demanded explanations from the RFEF and that the scores used to select the venues for the 2030 World Cup, which Spain is co-hosting with Morocco and Portugal, be published. "I demand that Louzán explain all of this immediately, that he explain who made the decisions, how they were made, why they were made, with electronically signed minutes. I don't trust anything," said Caballero, addressing the new president of the RFEF. "This is extremely serious. The fact that selection criteria have been changed is of the utmost seriousness," he said. Louzán became president of the RFEF six months after these events. "Who made the decision to change the technical committee's decision? What were the reasons for changing the criteria? What was the purpose? And why wasn't it made public?" the mayor of Vigo asks. "It's opacity and obscurity. I suppose they specifically wanted to leave Vigo out," he added.

According to information fromThe World, Tato reportedly sent an email to Louzán when he was president of the Galician Federation in which he admitted that the government had requested that various factors be considered in the voting. However, in that email, he told him that Vigo would be chosen as one of the venues, something that would not end up happening. The news came to light a few days ago after the president of the Higher Council of Sports (CSD), José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes, reiterated his aspiration for Spain to have thirteen venues for the sporting competition and stated that both Vigo and Valencia should be included in the bid. "My wish is that we aspire to have all thirteen venues in a World Cup that we share with Morocco and Portugal. FIFA is even suggesting that there will be more national teams than ever, so there will also be more options to host more matches," Uribes commented this Saturday. Portugal, which has three venues, and Morocco, with seven, are opposed. Spain insists it wants to have thirteen.

Tato folds

The RFEF requested a report on the events from the Executive Committee of the World Cup bid to understand the criteria used for selecting the hosts. María Tato presented the report on Wednesday, March 26, and immediately resigned. According to her report, the criteria for conducting the evaluations were based on those established by FIFA for other sporting events, such as the 2027 Women's World Cup. The report defends the management of the event, but Tato has chosen to resign to avoid further controversy. Last December, the World Cup organizing committee was dismantled due to changes within the RFEF, and figures such as Fernando Sanz and Jorge Mowinkel were left out. However, María Tato remained on the commission that created the Camp Nou and RCDE Stadium (Barcelona), Gran Canaria (Las Palmas), La Cartuja (Seville), La Rosaleda (Málaga), the Metropolitano and the Santiago Bernabéu (Madrid), and the Nueva Romareda (Zaragoza) (San Mamés).