Why the UK Is Eyeing the 2042 Men's World Cup
Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, has said he wants the men's World Cup to be held in the UK in 2042. The proposal gained fresh momentum after the UK prime minister told regional mayors at a meeting in Manchester on Friday that he was keen for the tournament to be played in the British Isles. The Guardian
Burnham, a self-described Everton season ticket holder, attended the No 10 North meeting on Friday. He had said earlier this month that it was "insane" that only one World Cup had ever been held anywhere in the UK. The 1966 tournament in England remains the only time the country has hosted or won the men's World Cup, with England beating West Germany 4-2 in the final after extra time. Hosting in 2042 would bring the tournament back to the UK for the first time in almost eight decades.
A formal application to stage the 2042 World Cup could also involve other home nations, none of which have ever hosted World Cup games. England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, alongside the Republic of Ireland, are already set to host the men's European championships in 2028. That tournament will give the British Isles a recent infrastructure base — stadiums, transport, and hospitality capacity already tested by a major event — which could factor into any future bid.
The 2042 target is not arbitrary. Under FIFA's rotation rules, no European country is eligible to host the World Cup until then. The system works like a continental rotation: nations cannot bid if either of the previous two tournaments took place on the same continent. The 2030 World Cup will be hosted by Spain, Portugal, and Morocco, with some early matches in South America to mark the tournament's centenary. FIFA has confirmed the 2034 edition will take place in Saudi Arabia. The 2038 host has not been announced, but under the rotation rules, games are likely to be played in North America or Oceania, which includes Australia and New Zealand. That sequence would clear the path for a European bid in 2042.
A Downing Street source said the government supports the Football Association's priorities regarding tournaments they are already hosting and any others they would like to bid for, describing these as "broad aspirations and a general ambition." The phrasing suggests the political endorsement, at this stage, stops short of a commitment to mount a formal bid.
The UK has a fraught history with World Cup hosting bids. England made a doomed bid to host the 2018 World Cup, which was awarded to Russia amid allegations of corruption. In 2014, while serving in the shadow cabinet, Burnham said he was uncomfortable that the World Cup was still allowed to take place in Russia after its annexation of Crimea. That bid failure, and the broader scrutiny of FIFA's selection processes that followed, looms over any future British effort to host the tournament.
At Friday's meeting, Burnham is also understood to have spoken about the possibility of hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games in the north of England in the 2040s. Earlier this year, under the previous prime minister Keir Starmer, UK Sport was commissioned to assess whether an Olympics bid would be viable. The government is considering a "multi city bid" to spread any economic benefit between several northern cities.
The broader context here is one of regional economic strategy converging with mega-sporting-event policy. Burnham's dual push for a northern Olympics and a UK-wide World Cup in the same decade reflects an effort to use tournament hosting as a lever for infrastructure investment and international visibility outside London. Whether the political appetite survives the long lead time to 2042, and whether a UK bid can overcome the credibility gap left by the 2018 defeat, are the questions that will shape whatever comes next.
