United 2026 FIFA World Cup bid

• 1. Introduction

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  United 2026 was the joint bid by the United States Soccer Federation, the Canadian Soccer Association, and the Mexican Football Federation. Together they set out to bring the World Cup back to North America. On the 13th of June 2018, delegates gathered at the 68th FIFA Congress in Moscow, Russia. They voted, and the United bid won by 134 votes to Morocco's 65.

  Getting there took years of separate ambitions, competing cities, and national governments eventually getting involved. How did three neighbors, each used to bidding alone, end up sharing one campaign? What would hosting actually look like once one World Cup was split across three separate countries? And why would a win this lopsided still get tangled up in politics for years afterward?

• 2. Separate Bids, Shared Ambition

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  Victor Montagliani, president of the Canadian Soccer Association, told FIFA in July 2012 that Canada planned to bid alone. "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," he said. Mexican Football Federation president Justino Compeán confirmed his own country's plan two months later, in September 2012. Neither federation mentioned working with the other.

  In October 2013, the president of Liga MX said Mexico was interested in joining forces with the United States on a shared bid. Montagliani reaffirmed Canada's solo intentions that same month. The Canadian Soccer Association repeated that stance in January 2014. The Mexican federation formally confirmed it was bidding for 2026 on the 9th of December 2014, still without naming any partners.

  Brazilian great Pelé said on the 18th of April 2015 that the United States should host the 2026 World Cup. The country had already staged the 1994 World Cup. It had also lost its bid for 2022, decided back in 2010, to Qatar. On the 13th of May 2016, at a FIFA Congress in Mexico City, USSF board member John Motta told ESPN the U.S. would bid "either jointly (with Mexico or Canada) or we will do it alone."

  Montagliani, now president of CONCACAF, floated the idea of a three-way bid in December 2016, the first time anyone had raised it publicly. Four months later, on the 10th of April 2017, the three federations officially announced they would submit one joint bid. That announcement kicked off a formal process that had already been delayed once, and was about to be reshaped again.

• 3. A Deliberately Slow Process

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  Bidding for the 2026 World Cup had already been derailed once, delayed by the 2015 FIFA corruption case and Sepp Blatter's resignation as FIFA president. The process restarted after a FIFA Council meeting on the 10th of May 2016. That meeting laid out four phases. A strategy and consultation phase ran from May 2016 to May 2017. An enhanced preparation phase followed from June to December 2017. Bid evaluation ran from March to June 2018, ending in a final decision that same month.

  By April 2017, no rival bid had emerged to challenge the North American proposal. Canada, Mexico, and the United States, all CONCACAF members, jointly asked FIFA to skip its usual bidding process. They wanted the tournament awarded outright, provided the joint bid met FIFA's requirements.

  On the 8th of May 2017, FIFA's Council ruled that a full bidding procedure would proceed after all. Only member associations from CAF, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, and the OFC were invited to bid. Those four confederations had not hosted either of the two previous World Cups. FIFA set the 11th of August 2017 as the deadline for any federation to declare an intention to bid.

• 4. Historic Firsts

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  Canada became the fifth country ever to host both a men's and a women's World Cup, joining Sweden, the United States, Germany, and France. Mexico became the first country anywhere to host three separate men's World Cups. The United States became the first country to host both the men's and the women's tournament twice each.

  This would also be the first World Cup ever played across three countries. It would be only the second World Cup held in more than one country at all, the first having come back in 2002.

  Canada, Mexico, and the United States had already hosted 14 FIFA tournaments between them by the time of the vote. That is more than any other trio of geographically connected nations has hosted. The list stretched from the 1970 and 1986 World Cups in Mexico and the 1994 World Cup in the United States. It also included youth and women's events such as the 1987 Under-16 World Championship, the 1999 Confederations Cup, and the 2015 Women's World Cup. That hosting record runs right up through the 2025 Club World Cup.

  All three nations had also hosted Olympic football before this. Montreal staged the tournament in 1976, Mexico City in 1968. The United States hosted it three times over: in St. Louis in 1904, Los Angeles in 1984, and Atlanta in 1996. The Atlanta Games marked the first Olympics to include a women's football tournament. The full hosting list also includes lesser known events like the 2011 U-17 World Cup and the 2003 Women's World Cup, tournaments that rarely make headlines outside the sport.

• 5. Assembling The Bid Committee

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  On the 6th of July 2017, the three federations formally created a United Bid Committee to run the campaign. Robert Kraft, the National Football League and Major League Soccer executive and owner, took the largely ceremonial role of honorary chairman.

  Three co-chairmen led the board, one from each country: Steven Reed of the Canadian Soccer Association, Decio de María of the Mexican Football Federation, and Carlos Cordeiro of the United States Soccer Federation. Montagliani also joined the board, alongside Sunil Gulati as FIFA Council member, Don Garber as commissioner of Major League Soccer, and Dan Flynn as secretary general of U.S. Soccer.

  The board also included Donna Shalala, a trustee professor of political science at the University of Miami, and Guillermo Cantu and Peter Montopoli, general secretaries of the Mexican and Canadian federations respectively. Former U.S. international Carlos Bocanegra, by then technical director of Atlanta United FC, also joined, as did Julie Foudy, founder of the Julie Foudy Sports Leadership Academy and an analyst and reporter for ESPN and ABC, and Ed Foster-Simeon, president and chief executive of the U.S. Soccer Foundation.

  Day to day operations fell to an executive team led by John Kristick as executive director, with Jim Brown overseeing technical operations as managing director. Peter Montopoli doubled as Canada's bid director while Yon De Luisa directed Mexico's side of the campaign. Their next job was narrowing a long wish list of stadiums down to a workable roster of host cities.

• 6. Narrowing The Map

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  On the 15th of August 2017, the United Bid Committee published a list of 49 stadiums across 44 metropolitan markets. Cities had until the 19th of January 2018 to submit written proposals. Any stadium under consideration needed room for at least 40,000 fans for group round games. The opening match and the final each needed a stadium holding at least 80,000.

  Interest was strong at first. On the 7th of September 2017-41 cities with 44 venues declared they wanted in. Less than a month later, on the 4th of October, the field was cut to 32 cities and 35 venues. By February 2018, at U.S. Soccer's annual meeting in Orlando, Sunil Gulati announced the list had shrunk again, to 26 cities and 26 venues.

  Money proved decisive for some. On the 14th of March 2018, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Vancouver all withdrew. Each cited worries about financial transparency and FIFA's refusal to negotiate cost details. The committee cut the field to 23 cities the very next day.

  Later withdrawals reshuffled the map further. Montreal pulled out on the 6th of July 2021 after Quebec's provincial government withdrew its backing. More than four years after dropping out, BC Place in Vancouver was brought back on the 14th of April 2022 to take Montreal's spot. A week later, on the 21st of April, Washington, D.C. also withdrew, folding its campaign into Baltimore's bid around M&T Bank Stadium.

  The official bid sent to FIFA proposed the opening match at either Estadio Azteca in Mexico City or the Rose Bowl near Los Angeles. It called for all three host nations to play their own opening games on the tournament's first day. The final was proposed for MetLife Stadium near New York. Both semifinals were split between AT&T Stadium in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. Mexico and Canada were each pencilled in for seven group stage games. They also got two matches in the round of 32 and one in the round of 16.

  The finished bid named 23 candidate cities in all, 17 of them in the United States and three each in Canada and Mexico. Sixteen cities made the final roster: eleven American, two Canadian, three Mexican. Most matches still landed on U.S. soil. The original proposal had the United States hosting 60 of 80 games. FIFA reshaped the tournament format in March 2023. The count then settled at 104 total matches. Canada and Mexico each host 13, and the United States hosts 78, including every match from the quarterfinals onward.

• 7. Backing From Fans And Governments

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  A survey taken on the 24th of October 2017 found broad support across all three countries. Seventy seven percent of North American respondents favored hosting the first-ever 48-team World Cup. Eighty one percent agreed hosting would be good for their own country. Almost six in ten, 57 percent, said they would attend matches if games were played near where they lived or worked.

  On the 20th of April 2018, Representative Darin LaHood and fellow Congressional Soccer Caucus co-chairs introduced a resolution backing the bid. His co-chairs were Kathy Castor, Don Bacon, and Ruben Kihuen. The U.S. House of Representatives adopted it on the 25th of April 2018. In Toronto, city councilors Mark Grimes and Cesar Palacio, along with Mayor John Tory, also supported the campaign. So did Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante.

  On the 13th of March 2018, Canadian Minister of Sport Kirsty Duncan announced in Ottawa that the federal government officially backed the bid. She pledged up to $5 million in immediate support if the bid won. U.S. President Donald Trump, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto all publicly supported the effort.

  The campaign branded itself United 2026, with a logo built around a ball bearing the number 26 in the colors of all three nations' flags. Its slogans ran in three languages: "United As One," rendered as "Unidos Como Uno" and "Unis Comme Un," alongside "Football For All," translated as "Fútbol Para Todos" and "Football Pour Tous." At a sports business conference in Dubai on the 28th of December 2017, FIFA president Gianni Infantino called the United bid a positive message.

• 8. The Politics That Followed

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  President Trump's executive orders restricting immigration from several Muslim-majority countries, enacted in 2017, were flagged as a risk to the bid. FIFA president Gianni Infantino warned plainly: "Any team, including the supporters and officials of that team, who qualify for a World Cup need to have access to the country, otherwise there is no World Cup."

  The Trump administration responded with letters to FIFA insisting Trump was "confident" that "all eligible athletes, officials and fans from all countries around the world would be able to enter the United States without discrimination." In 2018, Trump also warned nations weighing support for Morocco's bid. He tweeted that it "would be a shame if countries that we always support were to lobby against the U.S. bid," and asked why Washington should keep backing countries that did not support the U.S., "including at the United Nations."

  That original travel ban was reversed in January 2021 by Trump's successor, Joe Biden. But renewed tensions under both Trump administrations have worried co-hosts Canada and Mexico. Much of that worry centers on tariff disputes and remarks touching on Canadian sovereignty.

  Tightened immigration rules and a smaller federal workforce have raised fears that fans will not get visas in time. In some countries, the wait for a visa interview now runs to roughly a year. One U.S. Travel Association report concluded the country was not even prepared to host a single major event, let alone a World Cup. Officials also worry that a revived version of the 2017 travel ban could bar fans from as many as 40 countries from attending at all.