Gareth Southgate believes the unprecedented lay-out of the newly announced 2030 World Cup may cause “integrity” issues, due to the possibility of situations like one group opponent playing Argentina in Buenos Aires and the other two playing them back in Europe.
While the England manager acknowledged his side had similar in Euro 2020 with a series of Wembley games, he said this would be different to how “disjointed” it would be.
The hosting of the 2030 competition in Morocco-Portugal-Spain was announced on Wednesday, with the first three games to take place in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay respectively in order to recognise the centenary of the first World Cup in South America in 1930, before fully moving to Europe and north Africa.
That will likely mean six teams having to make a mid-tournament trip across the Atlantic with three enjoying home advantage for one game each.
“My big thing is I don’t quite get the integrity of the competition,” Southgate said. “You would have to play one game… I’d need to see it all laid out but my understanding is three matches played in South America, then those teams have to travel across the globe, change timezone again, and pick up the competition with home advantage in one part of the group and not another part.
“I know we had that a little bit with the last Euros, but that would seem quite disjointed and a different landscape for different teams in different groups. So yeah, what I’ve seen it, I’m not a fan.
“Argentina in Buenos Aires would not be great. Logically, you could play Argentina in Buenos Aires and have to travel back. There is a big difference between playing Argentina in Buenos Aires and playing them in Casablanca. So, that is a significant change to the competition.”
