World football's governing body Fifa further incurred the wrath of human rights and environmental activists on Wednesday with the formal confirmation of Saudi Arabia as hosts for the 2034 World Cup and the staging of the 2030 event at venues in Europe, Africa and South America that will send dozens of football teams and thousands of fans across the globe for matches.

In a nod to the 100th anniversary of the tournament, the opening game of the 2030 World Cup will be held in the Estadio Centenario in Montevideo in Uruguay which hosted the inaugural event. The second and third games of the tournament will be played in Argentina and Paraguay respectively.

The rest of the matches will then unfold in stadiums in Spain, Portugal and Morocco where plans are underway to build a 115,000-seat stadium in Benslimane, 40km east of Casablanca.

"Fifa has proposed World Cups that are an ecological aberration," said Guillaume Gouze, of the Centre of Sports Law and Economics at the University of Limoges in France.

"Fifa has a moral responsibility to integrate climate concerns into its tournament plans."

Benja Faecks, of the non-governmental organisation Carbon Market Watch, which evaluates climate promises of major events, told the French news agency AFP that the 2030 tournament was an unfortunate geographic choice.

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