UK Sport targets 2030 World Cup in ambitious bid to host array of events

UK Sport says hosting the 2030 football World Cup in Britain would be the “crowning achievement” of audacious new plans to hold between 40 and 60 major sporting events in the British Isles over the next 15 years.

The list of intended targets also includes the start of all three of cycling’s grand tours before 2025, the world athletics championships again by 2027 and even a big air ski and snowboarding world cup event in a major UK city.

UK Sport claims the proposals could attract 15 million spectators and bring in nearly £2bn in economic benefits – and would also show a global Britain was open for business in the post-Brexit era.

There will be some eyebrows raised that England is willing to be part of a bid for the World Cup again, especially given the disastrous campaign for 2018 which cost £19m and saw the bid knocked out in the first round of voting with a meagre two votes from Fifa’s executive committee.

However Simon Morton, UK Sport’s chief operating officer, said Fifa’s new World Cup voting rules made it much more likely a British bid would succeed. “The biggest target on our list is the World Cup,” he said. “If we bid for that, landing that event would be the crowning achievement, almost irrespective of everything else we’ve got.

“We have to recognise that the process Fifa used for 2026 was significantly better and more transparent than previous processes. You could argue [it] on its own is one of the best in world sport.”

Morton also promised that the FA would take a very different approach this time after being widely criticised for courting controversial Fifa figures, such as the former Concacaf president Jack Warner, who was later banned.

Yorkshire hopes to host the start of the Vuelta a España after welcoming the Tour de France in 2014. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA

“The FA has expressed to us that they have a set of principles and they are approaching this in a different way than before,” added Morton, who said the FA is conducting a feasibility study and is due to report in January. “We all remember the 2018 bid so that’s why it’s really important that the FA is cautious and taking its time.”

UK Sport is also hopeful that Wales’s bid to host the start of the Giro d’Italia in 2021 will be successful and there is optimism that Yorkshire can persuade the organisers of the Vuelta a España to come to the UK too.

While the Ryder Cup, the world athletics championships and world amateur boxing championships are on UK Sport’s list, Morton appeared to play down the prospect of a combined British bid for the Rugby World Cupafter England hosted the 2015 edition, saying “if the sport has not delivered on its previous plans, that’s something we will consider.”

UK Sport said it hoped that hosting big sporting events would be an important way of Britain using its “soft power” to get trade deals and show an open face to the world.

“We are entering a really defining decade,” said Morton. “How the world sees us has never been more important. The events on this list have potential to attract 15 million [people] and economic benefits of £2bn and to make people happier. We are a sport-mad nation and even in challenging times we need those really big moments for when the country can all come together. We need a global Britain.”

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Next year Britain will host the Netball World Cup in Liverpool, the UCI road cycling world championships, golf’s Solheim Cup, the men’s cricket World Cup and the world taekwondo championships in Manchester. But

Dame Katherine Grainger, the chair of UK Sport, insisted this would be just the start. “We want to maintain our standing as a world leader in this area and our ambitious event strategy will help us do just that in the coming decades,” she added.

UK Sport’s targets