M’sia Denies Bid to Host 2034 World Cup With Indonesia, Australia & S’pore, Backs Saudi Arabia Instead

Our country has never qualified for the FIFA World Cup throughout the history of the competition. In fact, in most editions of the World Cup, our national team didn’t even qualify for the main qualification rounds for the tournament!

However, Malaysia may end up qualifying for the world’s most prestigious association football tournament simply by becoming its co-host as our country was allegedly in talks about a potential joint bid to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup alongside Indonesia, Singapore and Australia.

Source: Utusan Borneo

As reported by Reuters, the president of Indonesia’s football federation (PSSI) Erick Thohir said that Malaysia expressed interest in co-hosting the 2034 FIFA World Cup when he visited our country recently.

He further revealed that the same commitment was also given by Singapore and Australia.

Source: NBC Sport

Last week, FIFA announced that Spain, Morocco and Portugal as the co-hosts for the 2030 World Cup, with Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina staging the opening games.

The world football governing body then invited member associations from Asia and Oceania to bid the rights to the 2034 edition of the tournament.

Source: Goal

Given that FIFA has expanded the teams in the World Cup to 48 instead of 32 starting with the upcoming 2026 edition, a joint bid by several countries would make the chances of winning the rights to host the tournament higher.

However, the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) has since quashed this report, with its president Datuk Hamidin Amin stressing that it hasn’t held any conversation on hosting the 2034 World Cup with anyone.

Furthermore, as reported by NST,  Hamidin also iterated that Malaysia has no intention to bid to host the World Cup any time soon.

Instead, our country, alongside many Asian nations is backing Saudi Arabia for the 2034 World Cup. The FAM president also asserted that it believes Saudi Arabia can host a successful World Cup.

So, what do you guys think about the whole situation? Share your thoughts with us in the comments!

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