The cover of the bid book for the 2026 World Cup submitted to Fifa by the United States, Mexico and Canada in April of 2017 has not aged well.
“UNITY,” the front page bellowed in a huge font.
Neither, for that matter, has the second page, which hollered “CERTAINTY.”
Yeah ... about all that. With less than 15 months to go until Mexico kicks off the biggest World Cup ever at 48 teams and 104 games at the Estadio Azteca, the notion of unity between the host nations feels downright fanciful. Since sweeping back into office, US president Donald Trump has started an unprovoked on-again, off-again, on-again trade war with Canada and threatened the same with Mexico. The Trump administration plans to further militarise the southern border and has picked other assorted fights large and small with its neighbours while bloviating about annexing Canada as a “51st state.”
The 68th Fifa Congress appeared to be making the safe choice in June of 2018 when they decisively picked the united North American bid over Morocco. After all, the attendance records set by the 1994 World Cup in the United States still stand – almost 3.6 million total fans at an average of nearly 69,000 per game – even though that was the last edition contested by just 24 teams over 52 games, rather than 32 over 64. Now, the promise of certainty is one that the organisers may not be able to keep.
A certain, sad irony runs through all of this: The bid truly was intended to smooth over tensions between the countries. When the North American bid was announced, Trump was hell-bent on building a wall on the Mexican border, and each of the three nations had erstwhile planned separate bids before combining forces.
“A big part of wanting to have a three-country bid for us was to try to bring people and our countries closer together,” recalls Sunil Gulati, then the president of US Soccer and chairman of the bid. “We have a huge Mexican community in the US. It was especially important for us back then, when we were talking with the Mexican side, to bring our people a little bit closer together. That was certainly part of the thinking. Our relationship with Canada was obviously so strong – we didn’t have the same sets of issues that needed addressing.”
There is only one precedent for a men’s World Cup with multiple hosts, and it is a messy one: Japan and South Korea in 2002. The distances were shorter than they will be in 2026, and the transportation infrastructure between the 20 venues was superior to anything in the US, Mexico and Canada. But tensions borne of history and pride between the hosts created obstacles. Japan had been the overwhelming favourite to land the tournament over South Korea after a murky and expensive race. Fifa president João Havelange proclaimed that, “Fifa rules do not allow co-hosting of the World Cup. As long as I am Fifa president, that will not change” just days before his executive committee split the baby and foisted shared custody upon the two nations. The sides bickered over everything from ticket revenue shares to whose name would go first in the tournament’s official title.
The 2002 World Cup ended up as a success, but the difficulties left a bad taste for subsequent joint bids. Yet now that the World Cup has swollen to such a size at 48 teams, and with the idea of expanding to 64 already soft-launched in the Fifa Council, vanishingly few nations remain that can host it on their own.
Staging mega events is to weave together hundreds of smaller events. To do it between three countries is vexingly complex to begin with, spreading the tournament out over a vast continent with two long borders and the attendant travel and visa headaches for the millions of fans expected to attend.
Yet unlike at previous World Cups, Fifa has no overarching local organising committee staffed by locals who understand the host nations and their governments. Instead, Fifa directly oversees 16 separate host groups in each of the cities. Fifa did not specifically respond to questions about this arrangement. Instead, it pointed to the recently announced taskforce chaired by Trump that will oversee preparations. “Our organisation continues to work closely with the three host countries in question, in order to host what will be one of the biggest sporting events ever held,” a Fifa spokesperson said.
But the decentralised approach has presented problems, such as how to interact with the US federal government in its current form. Each of the 11 host cities in the United States, which are all responsible for their own security among a litany of other things, have separately engaged lobbyists to push the Trump administration to provide $625 million (€580 million) to cover the World Cup’s security apparatus, per The Athletic.
If the first World Cup staged across three countries was never going to be a straightforward affair, the geopolitical sabre-rattling by the nation at the centre of the event – the USA will host 78 matches, while Canada and Mexico will each stage 13 – has introduced an element of unpredictability.
The US government is reportedly considering the possibility of a new travel ban, totally or severely restricting access to the citizens of as many as 41 nations, a reprisal of the so-called “Muslim ban” of 2017. Iran is on that list, and has now qualified for the tournament. Other countries on the list could follow, with Sudan and Venezuela each possible qualifiers, with both currently on the same “red list” as Iran.
In 1994, chairman of that year’s World Cup organising committee Alan Rothenberg worried when Iran, Iraq and North Korea all reached the final round of World Cup qualifying in Asia. Securing visas for their players and staff, let alone fans, would have been a tall task. England and its attendant travelling hooligans, who had brought all kinds of trouble to Italy in 1990, concerned him too. Conveniently, none of them made it to the final tournament. “That England, Iran, Iraq and North Korea didn’t qualify saved us a ton of headaches and a lot of money,” says Rothenberg.
The question that lingers is whether Fifa president Gianni Infantino, who seems to have nurtured a close if transactional relationship with president Trump, has enough sway to make exceptions for the World Cup. Then again, Trump, who keeps a small World Cup replica trophy in the Oval Office, seems intent on leveraging the tournament to burnish his own legacy.
Yet even if no more of the nations on any potential restricted travel list are among the 48 to qualify in 2026, obtaining visas into the United States promises to be a headache for fans. Visa wait times at American embassies in some countries that will likely qualify, like Turkey and Colombia, are already longer than the time remaining until the tournament kicks off, The Athletic found.
Have the Lions left Ireland in the lurch?
Even if the process can be facilitated for players, staff and delegations, how will fans be able to plan for a trip they don’t have to make? How will they cross borders with only a few days to plan for knockout round games? Let’s imagine, for a moment, that defending champions Argentina are drawn into Group K. They could play group stage games in Houston, Guadalajara and Miami, followed by knockout games in Kansas City, Vancouver and Kansas City again. That would mean four border crossings during the tournament, the last two with only four days’ notice apiece. As of yet, there is no process in place to address these issues.
Optimism prevails among insiders that solutions will be found.
“It is worth noting that the current administration was in office during the successful bid process for 2026, and signed the government guarantees as part of that process,” the Fifa spokesperson said. “We continue to work with various departments and agencies of the US Government to ensure the US can capitalise on this once-in-a-generation opportunity to tap into billions of dollars in positive financial benefits and goodwill, and bring millions of people from different nations and communities together to celebrate in the United States.”
But a great many issues have to be resolved before then, some of them only exacerbated by the Trump administration’s hostility to its neighbouring countries, and its own internal federal downsizing. Some World Cup participants are already feeling the effect of the issues. “The last time in Los Angeles we were waiting one hour and a half in the [immigration] queue [at the airport],” US men’s national team head coach Mauricio Pochettino said in a recent interview.
“They still didn’t give me ... como se dice,” he quipped. “The green card.” – Guardian
