The USA, Canada and Mexico have announced that they are throwing down a bid to make a play for the 2026 World Cup this week. This is a historic bid, with three nations joining up for the first time ever to try and lure the World Cup. If the bid is successful, then it would be the first time since the 2002 tournament, which was co-hosted by Japan and South Korea, that the World Cup would be hosted by multiple countries.
The field is somewhat limited for 2026 World Cup hosting because it was announced by FIFA that the two previous hosts wouldn’t be able to bid. So with Russia hosting in 2018 and Qatar set for 2022, that ruled out Asia and Europe making a bid. So that just leaves the CONCACAF, the CAF, South America CONMEBOL and Oceania OFC nations to throw forth a bid. Only the latter has never hosted before.
There are changes set for the 2026 World cup with the tournament being expanded to a 48 team tournament in a massive 80-game format. Last summer FIFA announced a four-stage bidding process to host the 2026 edition of the World Cup and the decision will be made in May 2020.
The USA played hosts in the 1994 World Cup and CONCACAF hasn’t hosted since then. Their bid comes at a time when US and Mexico relations aren’t great and with much furore about the US’s proposed travel bans, it could make life difficult for themselves in the bid. However, US Soccer has said that US President Donald Trump is happy to work with Mexico on the bid. The lion’s share of the games in the proposal would be held in the USA.
The proposals of the bid would see the US host 60 games including each fixture from the quarter finals onwards. Then Mexico and Canada would split the remaining 20 fixtures in the tournament equally. Despite just being a 24 team tournament, the 1994 World Cup holds the record for being the most highly attended tournament in this history of the World Cup. The last time Mexico hosted the World Cup was in 1970 and Canada have yet to do so, but they were hosts of the Women’s World Cup in 2015.
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