A unified bid to welcome the world to in 2026!
— U.S. Soccer (@ussoccer) April 10, 2017
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CARSON, Calif. – U.S. Soccer, the Mexican football federation, and Canadian soccer association announced on Monday that the three countries are banding together to submit a joint bid for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
In a press conference in New York City, the heads of the three federations outlined their plan to bring the world’s showpiece soccer event to North America. The tournament would be the first co-nation bid for the tournament since the South Korea and Japan joint bid for the 2002 World Cup. As with the Asian bid, all three host nations are expected to receive automatic berths to the competition.
The tournament will feature a total of 80 games with 60 held in the United States and 10 each being allocated to Canada and Mexico respectively. Per the bid outline, all matches from the quarterfinals on will be held in the United States, but FIFA holds the final word on this decision. To reduce travel for teams, they will be grouped in clusters during the opening round. However, no information has been given yet which cities or stadiums will serve as venues for the tournament.
During the press conference, U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati stated that the bid has the full support of the governments of all three nations as well as the CONCACAF federation which has not hosted a World Cup since the United States held the tournament in 1994. All three countries carry World Cup host experience with Mexico hosting the competition in 1970 and 1986, while Canada held the highly-successful 2015 FIFA Women’s Cup.
The bid will now be reviewed by FIFA before the organization comes to a final decision in May 2020. At present, there is no rival bid but the European and Asian federations are restricted from bidding due to their hosting duties for the World Cup in 2018 and 2022 respectively.
