United 2026 Fifa World Cup Bid

2026 FIFA World Cup bid
United 2026 ; Canada–United States–Mexico 2026
Tournament details
Host countries	Canada; United States; Mexico
Venue(s)	16 (selected from a proposal of 23) (in 16 host cities)
	← 2022 2030 →

While the soccer federations of Canada, Mexico, and the United States had individually announced plans to field a bid for the 2026 World Cup, the concept of a joint bid among the three North American countries was first proposed in 2016. The joint bid was officially unveiled on April 10, 2017, under which the tournament would be held at venues in all three countries. A shortlist of 23 candidate cities were named in the official bid, with 17 in the U.S., 3 in Canada, and 3 in Mexico. Ten U.S. candidate cities will join three Canadian candidate cities, and three Mexican candidate cities, to form the roster of 16 cities that will host the matches of this World Cup. Although a joint bid, the majority of the matches will be held in the United States. Canada and Mexico will host 10 matches each, while the United States will host the other 60, including all matches from the quarterfinals onward.

On June 13, 2018, at the 68th FIFA Congress in Moscow, Russia, the United bid was selected by 134 votes to Morocco's 65. Upon this selection, Canada will become the fifth country to host both the men's and women's World Cup, joining Sweden, the United States, Germany, and France. Mexico will become the first country to host three men's World Cups, and the United States will become the first country to host both the men's and women's World Cup twice each. This will be the first World Cup to be hosted in three countries, as well as the first since 2002 and the second overall to be held in multiple countries.

Background

The three soccer federations of Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. announced interest in submitting a bid for the 2026 World Cup years before the federations intended to unify their efforts.

In July 2012, Canadian Soccer Association president Victor Montagliani confirmed plans for a Canadian bid, saying: "We have verbally told FIFA that when the bid process begins for the next available World Cup, which would be the 2026 World Cup, that the CSA will be one of the countries putting in a formal proposal". At the time the bid was announced, Canada had hosted the men's 1987 Under-16 World Championship and the U-20 World Cups for both men and women; the country has since hosted the 2014 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup and the FIFA Women's World Cup in 2015. In October 2013, Montagliani confirmed Canada's intention to bid for the 2026 tournament and the Canadian Soccer Association reiterated this in January 2014.

In September 2012, Mexican Football Federation (FMF) President Justino Compeán confirmed plans for a Mexican bid. In October 2013, Liga MX President said that Mexico was interested in joining forces with the U.S. to co-host a bid for the 2026 World Cup. On December 9, 2014, FMF confirmed that it was bidding for the 2026 World Cup.

On May 13, 2016, at the FIFA Congress in Mexico City, USSF board member John Motta told ESPN "whatever happens, we will bid for the 2026 World Cup -- either jointly (with Mexico or Canada) or we will go it alone." The United States hosted the 1994 FIFA World Cup and unsuccessfully bid for the 2022 World Cup, which was won by Qatar in 2010. On April 18, 2015, Brazilian legend Pelé stated that the United States should host the 2026 World Cup.

In December 2016 Victor Montagliani, CONCACAF president announced for the first time a possibility of a joint bid between the United States, Canada, and Mexico to host the 2026 World Cup.

On April 10, 2017, the three bodies officially announced their intent to submit a joint bid for the 2026 World Cup.

Bid process

Bidding for the 2026 FIFA World Cup was postponed due to the 2015 FIFA corruption case and the subsequent resignation of Sepp Blatter, then was restarted following the FIFA Council meeting on May 10, 2016, wherein the bidding process would consist of four phases:

May 2016 – May 2017: a new strategy and consultation phase
June 2017 – Dec 2017: enhanced phases for bid preparation
March 2018 – June 2018: bid evaluation
June 2018: final decision

With no rival bid having emerged since April 2017 the CONCACAF member federations of Canada, Mexico, and the United States sent a joint request to FIFA to hasten the bid process. Canada, Mexico, and the United States wanted FIFA to award the bid outside the traditional bidding process at the June 2018 FIFA Congress in Moscow if the CONCACAF-bid meets FIFA requirements.

However the FIFA Council decided on May 8, 2017, that FIFA would have a full bidding procedure. In order to ensure continental rotation of hosting duties, only the member associations of CAF, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, and the OFC were invited, as these continental confederations had not hosted the two previous World Cups. A date of August 11, 2017, was set for submission of an intention to bid.

FIFA football tournament hosting experiences

Together, Canada, Mexico, and the United States have hosted 13 FIFA events, which is the most of any trio of geographically connected nations.

In addition, all three countries have hosted at least one Olympic football tournament. Canada played host in Montreal 1976, Mexico in Mexico City 1968, and the United States hosted twice – in Los Angeles 1984 and Atlanta 1996. The Atlanta Games were the first to include a women's tournament.

Bid committee

On July 6, 2017, a United Bid Committee was officially formed by the national federations of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, to kick off the bidding process to bring the 2026 World Cup to North America.

Honorary chairman of the board

Robert Kraft: National Football League and Major League Soccer executive and owner

United bid committee board of directors

Steven Reed – co-chairman, president of the Canadian Soccer Association
Decio de María – co-chairman, president of the Mexican Football Federation
Carlos Cordeiro – co-chairman, president of the United States Soccer Federation
Victor Montagliani – president of CONCACAF
Sunil Gulati – FIFA Council member
Don Garber – commissioner of Major League Soccer
Dan Flynn – secretary general of U.S. Soccer
Donna Shalala – trustee professor of Political Science at the University of Miami
Guillermo Cantu – general secretary of the Mexican Football Federation
Peter Montopoli – general secretary of the Canadian Soccer Association
Carlos Bocanegra – technical director of Atlanta United FC
Julie Foudy – founder of Julie Foudy Sports Leadership Academy and television analyst and reporter for ESPN/ABC
Ed Foster-Simeon – president and CEO of U.S. Soccer Foundation

United bid committee executive team

John Kristick – executive director for the united bid committee
Jim Brown – managing director, technical operations
Peter Montopoli – Canada bid director
Yon De Luisa – Mexico bid director

Potential venues

On August 15, 2017, the United Bid Committee released a list of 49 stadiums in 44 metropolitan markets across the three nations which will be considered for the official bid. The United Bid Committee planned to include 20–25 venues in the official bid, which was sent to FIFA in March 2018. Stadiums must have a capacity of at least 40,000 for group-round matches and at least 80,000 for the opening match and the final.

On September 7, 2017, the United Bid Committee announced that a total of 41 cities (with 44 venues) had submitted bids marking their official declaration of interest to be included in the final bid: Almost a month later, on October 4, 2017, the list of cities was cut down to 32 with 35 venues. During U.S. Soccer's annual general meeting in Orlando in February 2018, Gulati revealed that the list of cities had been cut down to 26 with 29 venues.^{[better source needed]}

On March 14, 2018, Vancouver, Minneapolis and Chicago all announced that they were dropping out as potential host cities. All three cities cited concerns over the financial transparency of being a host city and cited FIFA's unwillingness to negotiate financial details as reasons for their decisions; the bid committee announced the next day they had reduced the number of cities in the bid to 23.

Cities had to submit written proposals to the United Bid Committee by January 19, 2018, before being selected by the committee.

The official bid has proposed the main opening match be held in either the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City or at the Rose Bowl in the Los Angeles area, that all three host countries' teams would host their first matches on the first day of the tournament and that the final match be held at MetLife Stadium in the New York City area. The bid also proposed that the two semi-final matches would be held at AT&T Stadium in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. All of the other cities in the American portion of the bid are under consideration for quarter-final matches. The bid book proposal calls for Mexico and Canada to each host seven group-stage games, two matches in the round of 32, and one in the round of 16.

A † denotes stadium used for previous men's World Cup tournaments

A ‡ denotes an indoor stadium

Canada

Vancouver, British Columbia	Toronto, Ontario
BC Place‡	BMO Field
Capacity: 54,000	Capacity: 30,000 (Expanding to 45,500 for tournament)

Vancouver Toronto class=notpageimage\| Canadian proposed venues

Mexico

Mexico City	Monterrey, Nuevo León	Guadalajara, Jalisco
Estadio Azteca†	Estadio BBVA	Estadio Akron
Capacity: 87,523	Capacity: 53,500 (Bid book capacity: 53,460)	Capacity: 46,232 (Bid book capacity: 48,071)

Guadalajara Monterrey Mexico City

United States

New York/New Jersey	Dallas, Texas	Kansas City, Missouri	Houston, Texas
MetLife Stadium (East Rutherford, New Jersey)	AT&T Stadium‡ (Arlington, Texas)	Arrowhead Stadium	NRG Stadium‡
Capacity: 82,500 (Bid book capacity: 87,157)	Capacity: 80,000 (Bid book capacity: 92,967) (expandable to 105,000)	Capacity: 76,416 (Bid book capacity: 76,640)	Capacity: 72,220

Atlanta, Georgia	Atlanta Boston Dallas Houston Kansas City Los Angeles Miami New York/NJ Philadelphia San Francisco Bay Area Seattle class=notpageimage\| American candidate cities		Los Angeles, California*
Mercedes-Benz Stadium‡			SoFi Stadium (Inglewood, California)
Capacity: 71,000 (Bid book capacity: 75,000) (expandable to 83,000)			Capacity: 70,240 (expandable to 100,240)

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Lincoln Financial Field
Capacity: 69,796 (Bid book capacity: 69,328)

Seattle, Washington	San Francisco Bay Area	Boston, Massachusetts	Miami, Florida
Lumen Field	Levi's Stadium (Santa Clara, California)	Gillette Stadium (Foxborough, Massachusetts)	Hard Rock Stadium (Miami Gardens, Florida)
Capacity: 69,000 (expandable to 72,000)	Capacity: 68,500 (Bid book capacity: 70,909) (expandable to 75,000)	Capacity: 65,878 (Bid book capacity: 70,000)	Capacity: 64,767 (Bid book capacity: 67,518)

* = Was not initially included in the bid book but is also being considered.