2026 FIFA World Cup

[Per]

So, we're slowly getting there. The tournament has expanded from the 32 nations participating in recent World Cups to a total of 48 nations (8 teams from Asia*, 9 from Africa, 6 from North America (including the hosts), 6 from South America, 1 from Oceania and 16 from Europe*), and will be spread over venues in Canada, the US and Mexico. If you add up the totals per continent, you notice that it just adds up to 46. The last two slots will be awarded through a playoff with one team each from Asia, Africa, South America and Oceania and two teams from North America.

So far 13 teams have qualified:
AFC (6): Australia, Iran, Japan, Jordan (debut), South Korea and Uzbekistan (debut)
CONCACAF (3): Canada (co-host), Mexico (co-host) and the United States (co-host)
CONMEBOL (3): Argentina, Brazil and Ecuador
OFC (1): New Zealand

At present there are 16 venues that have been picked for the tournament, split into three regions:

West: Los Angeles, SF Bay Area, Seattle, Vancouver

Central: Dallas, Guadalajara, Houston , Kansas City, Mexico City, Monterrey

East: Atlanta, Boston, Miami, NY/NJ, Philadelphia , Toronto

There could be last minute changes though, as there are clouds at the horizon...

The host nations have promised to welcome the participating teams and their fans and to facilitate travel and accomodation.
But since signing this agreement the USA has issued full travel bans against 12 countries and partial travel bans against 6 more, which includes a ban on B-1 and B-2 visas, which are the ones used for tourism. At least one country affected by this (Iran) has qualified for the tournament and several others (eg Venezuela) may do so.

And apart from these travel bans, the US has unilaterally added red tape and made it harder for people to enter the USA, including randomly adding a USD250 fee for visa applications on top of the already existing fees. For a family of four that is an additional USD1000 just to have someone look at your visa application, not even guaranteeing that you get it approved.

Add to this that several countries already experience a 9 months waiting time for visa processing, which means that if they haven't already applied for a visa to the USA, they will not get it in time for the tournament, and they may not even know if their country has qualified yet.

Against this background several voices have raised concerns that the USA is not fullfilling their part of the agreement and that they should be stripped of their role as host nation and all games reassigned to Mexico and Canada that allow most nations visa free access and have speedy processes for those that need visas. Usually free or at a minimal processing fee.

It would not be the first time this has happened. It is written into the hosting agreement that the tournament can be moved with a 90 day advance notice. This has happened once before; the 1986 World Cup was scheduled to be held in Colombia, but as Colombia couldn't meet the requirements it was moved to Mexico instead. That time they made the decision several years before the cup was held though. This would be trickier as it is less than a year left to the tournament, But from what I hear FIFA has already been discussing this with Canada and Mexico and most certainly with the USA as well. The easiest solution would be for the USA to scale back the travel restrictions and trumped up fees and live up to the agreement they signed with FIFA.


* for FIFA purposes Australia is considered part of Asia while Israel, Armenia and Turkey are considered part of Europe

[UWSaint]

So, we're slowly getting there. The tournament has expanded from the 32 nations participating in recent World Cups to a total of 48 nations (8 teams from Asia*, 9 from Africa, 6 from North America (including the hosts), 6 from South America, 1 from Oceania and 16 from Europe*), and will be spread over venues in Canada, the US and Mexico. If you add up the totals per continent, you notice that it just adds up to 46. The last two slots will be awarded through a playoff with one team each from Asia, Africa, South America and Oceania and two teams from North America.

So far 13 teams have qualified:
AFC (6): Australia, Iran, Japan, Jordan (debut), South Korea and Uzbekistan (debut)
CONCACAF (3): Canada (co-host), Mexico (co-host) and the United States (co-host)
CONMEBOL (3): Argentina, Brazil and Ecuador
OFC (1): New Zealand

At present there are 16 venues that have been picked for the tournament, split into three regions:

West: Los Angeles, SF Bay Area, Seattle, Vancouver

Central: Dallas, Guadalajara, Houston , Kansas City, Mexico City, Monterrey

East: Atlanta, Boston, Miami, NY/NJ, Philadelphia , Toronto

There could be last minute changes though, as there are clouds at the horizon...

The host nations have promised to welcome the participating teams and their fans and to facilitate travel and accomodation.
But since signing this agreement the USA has issued full travel bans against 12 countries and partial travel bans against 6 more, which includes a ban on B-1 and B-2 visas, which are the ones used for tourism. At least one country affected by this (Iran) has qualified for the tournament and several others (eg Venezuela) may do so.

And apart from these travel bans, the US has unilaterally added red tape and made it harder for people to enter the USA, including randomly adding a USD250 fee for visa applications on top of the already existing fees. For a family of four that is an additional USD1000 just to have someone look at your visa application, not even guaranteeing that you get it approved.

Add to this that several countries already experience a 9 months waiting time for visa processing, which means that if they haven't already applied for a visa to the USA, they will not get it in time for the tournament, and they may not even know if their country has qualified yet.

Against this background several voices have raised concerns that the USA is not fullfilling their part of the agreement and that they should be stripped of their role as host nation and all games reassigned to Mexico and Canada that allow most nations visa free access and have speedy processes for those that need visas. Usually free or at a minimal processing fee.

It would not be the first time this has happened. It is written into the hosting agreement that the tournament can be moved with a 90 day advance notice. This has happened once before; the 1986 World Cup was scheduled to be held in Colombia, but as Colombia couldn't meet the requirements it was moved to Mexico instead. That time they made the decision several years before the cup was held though. This would be trickier as it is less than a year left to the tournament, But from what I hear FIFA has already been discussing this with Canada and Mexico and most certainly with the USA as well. The easiest solution would be for the USA to scale back the travel restrictions and trumped up fees and live up to the agreement they signed with FIFA.


* for FIFA purposes Australia is considered part of Asia while Israel, Armenia and Turkey are considered part of Europe

All theory aside about what might happen, isn't all the evidence that FIFA increasing its presence in the United States as an intentional strategy and Trump is up for it? (Answer, yes.)

[Per]

All theory aside about what might happen, isn't all the evidence that FIFA increasing its presence in the United States as an intentional strategy and Trump is up for it? (Answer, yes.)

Absolutely. FIFA would like to tap into the NA market, and there are indications that the market is ripe for that.

But the restrictions the Trump regime has imposed on fans travelling to the US to see their teams compete is throwing a spanner in the works for this. The question now is how they choose to address it. Will they demand that the US honours the agreements made when they accepted to host the tournament, or will they just look the other way? And if they demand that the agreement stands, but the US refuses to fulfill* its end of the bargain, will they have the balls to stand up to them and take their balls and leave?

If the tournament is held as planned and throngs of fans are either denied entry, detained or deported, there will be a huge scandal.
FIFA is as corrupt as it gets and is already despised by most football fans, but a failed tournament could become a new low.

Then again, this could be Trump's Berlin Olympics, so maybe he'll get a grip, ease the travel restrictions and send the ICE goons back to their baracks for the duration of the tournament so he can present a picture of a friendly and welcoming USA to the world. We'll see.


*Canadians, should I write fulfil or fulfill? I generally try to go with British spelling and prefer to write eg realise, flavour, grey and aluminium, but fulfil somehow doesn't feel fulfilling to me.