France and Germany to make joint bid to host the 2038 World Cup: These are the next tournament venues

Now the dust has finally settled on the 2026 World Cup, attentions will be turning to the next ones. And for tournament organizers FIFA that means looking ahead way beyond the 2030 edition which will be co-hosted by Spain, Portugal and Morocco with a few additional centenary games held in South America.

The hosts for the 2030 and 2034 World Cups were formally confirmed at an Extraordinary FIFA Congress held in Zurich in December 2024, with Saudi Arabia organizing the 25th edition of the tournament eight years from now.

And in the meantime, several countries are busy drafting their proposals to stage the 2038 World Cup - including some who missed out on some of the recent tournaments.

Submitting a bid to host an event on a massive scale like the World Cup is one thing and being selected is another. Even countries that have FIFA’s gold standard infrastructure already in place find themselves up against other hurdles, such as the rotation policy which world football’s governing body has employed since Germany 2006.

It basically guarantees that the six world confederations

take it in turns to stage the four-yearly event. For example, only member associations from CONCACAF, CAF, CONMEBOL and OFC were able to submit bids to host the 2026 World Cup as the two previous editions had been held in Qatar (AFC) and Russia (UEFA).

France, open to linking up with Germany in joint World Cup bid

The World Cup returns to Europe in 2030 but that hasn’t deterred a number of UEFA member associations from considering entering bids for the 2038 tournament which, in theory, would only be open to CONCACAF and OFC.

Four of Europe’s top three footballing nations: England, Italy, Germany and France are believed to be considering placing a bid to hold the 2038 World Cup - either independently, or in collaboration with each other.

France, who won the 1998 event as the hosts, are looking to hold the World Cup for a third time, seeing as 2038 will mark the 100th anniversary of the third edition, which they staged in the summer of 1938.

French Sports Minister Marina Ferrari said this week that they would even be open to preparing a joint bid with Germany, who hosted more recently, in 2006. She told Sud Radio’s Le Grand Matin program this week that the idea of entering a bid to FIFA to stage the 2038 World Cup “has been around for a while.”

She added, “It aligns perfectly with France’s strategy of bringing in major international sporting events. I’ll remind everyone that we’re hosting the France‑Germany Handball World Cup in 2029. So this is also part of our broader policy to grow the sports economy.”

As of the moment, FIFA have not set a date for the launch of the bidding process for the 2038 World Cup. There has been suggestions that president Gianni Infantino is keen to expand the tournament further in forthcoming editions, raising the number of participating teams from 48 to 64.

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