The city of Malaga has pulled out of being a host venue for the 2030 World Cup, to be held in Spain, Portugal and Morocco.
The Times of Malta said Spain had put forward 11 stadiums to be used, including La Rosaleda in the south coast city.
However, Malaga mayor Francisco de la Torre said hosting matches could cause problems for the city’s club and fans, because of reconstruction work needed on the stadium.
The 30,044-capacity La Rosaleda is a football stadium in the City of Málaga in Andalucía, Southern Spain. It is the home stadium of Málaga CF of the Segunda División.
De la Torre said after a meeting with Malaga Council and the regional government of Andalusia, “Choosing between the World Cup and the club, we choose the club and the fans.
“After (several) meetings… we believe that the most responsible, prudent and sensible thing to do today is to abandon Malaga’s World Cup (hosting).
“If the World Cup is a risk for the club and a problem for the fans, it’s not worth continuing with.”
The 2030 FIFA World Cup will be the 24th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial international football tournament contested by the men’s national teams of the member-associations of FIFA.
It will mark the centennial World Cup competition. For the first time, three countries from two continents will host the competition, with Spain, Portugal and Morocco as the host nations.
Additionally, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay will serve as the nations that open the event as a commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the first World Cup in Uruguay.
This will be the first World Cup held in Africa since 2010, in South America since 2014 as well as in Europe since 2018.
If they were to host the World Cup, Malaga would have to play at a 12,500 capacity alternative stadium while reconstruction on La Rosaleda took place, and they currently have over 26,000 season ticket holders.
The works would have cost an estimated €270 million ($316 million) but the mayor said the decision had not been made in order to cut costs.
De la Torre added, “We want there to be a new stadium. It will not be for the World Cup but there will be, that’s a firm commitment.
“We’re not doing this to save money but because it’s for the best for the city, the fans and the club.”
Spanish second division club Malaga competed in the Champions League in 2013 but subsequently dropped as low as the third-tier amid a financial crisis.
In March Spain’s head of World Cup 2030 organisation Maria Tato resigned after being accused of fixing the process to decide which stadiums would host matches.
Newspaper El Mundo said ratings for potential venues were altered to favour Anoeta in San Sebastian, at the expense of Balaidos in Vigo.
The Galician city as well as east coast city Valencia are options to replace Malaga as a host.
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