Enlarge image

The U17 World Cup is scheduled to take place in the Lusail City stadium in the coming years

Photo: Adam Nurkiewicz / Getty Images

The U17 World Cup will be held annually in Qatar until 2029.

The Council of the World Football Association Fifa decided this in a virtual meeting on Thursday.

In addition, the U17 World Cup will be held in Morocco for the next five years starting in 2025.

The two tournaments had previously been held every two years.

Last year, FIFA announced that the U17 World Cup would be played annually from 2025 and increased from 24 to 48 teams.

The tournament for female U17 teams will now take place with 24 nations, up from 16 previously.

The focus when choosing the hosts was “on the use of the existing football infrastructure in the interests of tournament efficiency and sustainability,” FIFA announced after the meeting.

As a German representative, DFB President Bernd Neuendorf is a member of the world association's council.

The German U17 men won the World Cup title in Indonesia last year.

Why Qatar is criticized in the sports world

Qatar hosted the 2022 Men's World Cup. Seven new stadiums, numerous hotels and roads were built for the World Cup.

The country had previously been criticized for human rights violations, among other things.

Women do not have equal rights in Qatar and homosexuality is punishable.

LGBTQIA+ people face several years in prison, but the crime is currently not being punished.

The conditions for guest workers were also criticized.

To this day it is unclear how many people died on the World Cup construction sites and why.

There are many indications that the awarding of the 2022 World Cup was bought, even if there is still no evidence to date.

Read more about how Qatar acted and how FIFA was involved here.

But Qatar was not the first country to be mired in corruption surrounding a World Cup.

There were also abnormalities in the awards to Germany and South Africa.

Sport is part of a large-scale image campaign through which Qatar wants to present itself as a country as visible and cosmopolitan as possible.

The country secured world championships in various disciplines, Formula 1 will be a guest in Qatar for ten years starting from the 2023 season, and the country organizes tennis events.

Qatar also bought the French giants Paris Saint-Germain in 2011.

ast/sid