The 2023 FIFA U-20 World Cup will be heading elsewhere after hosts Indonesia was stripped of hosting the youth tournament.
FIFA announced the decision on Wednesday after the country’s football federation [PSSI] said it cancelled the World Cup draw because Bali governor Wayan Koster refused to host Israel’s national team. The World Cup draw was slated for March 31, but was postponed last weekend.
The U-20 World Cup is scheduled to run from May 20 – June 11, but there has been no update on whether the tournament start date will be pushed back due to a new host needing to be found.
“FIFA has decided, due to the current circumstances, to remove Indonesia as the host of the FIFA U-20 World Cup 2023,” a FIFA statement said. “A new host will be announced as soon as possible, with the dates of the tournament currently remaining unchanged. Potential sanctions against the PSSI may also be decided at a later stage.”
“Indonesia is a FIFA member, so for any international soccer matters, we have to abide by the rules,” PSSI Chairman Erick Thohir said in a statement on PSSI’s website. “I ask all football lovers to keep their heads held high over this tough decision by FIFA. It’s time we proved to FIFA to work harder to transform soccer, towards clean and high-achieving soccer.”
Protesters marched in the capital Jakarta this month waving Indonesian and Palestinian flags and demanding that Israel was not allowed to participate.
The U.S. Under-20 men’s national team is one of 23 national teams to qualify for the U-20 World Cup, joining Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and Honduras as Concacaf’s four representatives.
Mikey Varas’ squad won the Concacaf U-20 Championship last summer, with former Philadelphia Union homegrown Paxten Aaronson taking home the tournament’s Golden Boot and Ball awards respectively.
The USMNT U-20’s just recently completed a three-match March schedule which concluded Tuesday with a 0-0 draw vs. Serbia.
I’m not going to say Indonesia is right but Russia was suspended by FIFA for way less than what israel is doing.
Really? Did Israel invade a sovereign nation and caused 250,000 deaths and a total destruction under a false pretense?
You opinions about politics are just as amazing as about soccer
Only need 6 or 7 venues, they Eastern US could host. Nashville, Orlando, Charlotte, Miami, DC, Louisville, Cincinnati, Columbus. Probably have to move some MLS dates around but shouldn’t be too big a deal. Plenty of universities in those cities to provide trading facilities.
Hearing it may be Peru. Who is already hosting the U17 WC later in the summer.
Argentina apparently is volunteering (so they can actually play). I read Peru was best bet as well.
it’s gonna be a handful of countries with several good stadiums, abundant hotels, etc. available on short notice, elite soccer nations and us. maybe mexico and japan. we would also have an interesting mix of the world cup style football monstrosities as well as MLS size venues. you could scale it up or down. but so could england, germany, spain, as they have so many divisions to choose from.
we shall see.
Don’t need the big stadiums for U20s. There’s usually not a ton of fans even at the final, about 16,000 last time and that was with neighboring Ukraine playing. Poland as the host was only getting 17,000. Most were 8,000-10,000 attendees.