North America has won the race to host the 2026 World Cup.
The tournament will be held across the US, Canada and Mexico, which means that all three nations should automatically qualify for the World Cup finals. The competition has only been co-hosted once before, in 2002 between South Korea and Japan.
The decision came as over 200 national football federations voted in favour of North America at Moscow’s Expocentre today.
North America’s ‘United’ bid was always expected to win over Morocco. FIFA’s glowing infrastructural report this month only bolstered their case, in which they received an impressive score of 402.8 out of 500. A North America World Cup also promised to generate a profit of £8.1 billion for FIFA, which nearly doubled their rival’s projected £4.48 billion.
The US has hosted the World Cup once before and Mexico has held it twice, while Morocco has failed in all of its five campaigns.
As you might expect, US president Donald Trump almost managed to ruin it at one point. While he’s been lobbying for the bid behind closed doors and sent reassuring letters to FIFA president Gianni Infantino that he won’t take a harsh stance on visiting fans’ visas, he risked North America’s chances with a meddling speech in April.
“I hope all African countries and countries throughout the world, that we also will be supporting you and that they will likewise support us in our bid, along with Canada and Mexico, for the 2026 World Cup,” Trump said in a joint White House press conference with Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari.
“We will be watching very closely, and any help they can give us in that bid we would appreciate.”
