US could gain FIFA support through Mexico, Canada joint bid

CONCACAF President Victor Montagliani speaks during a news conference in New York

A North American World Cup in 2026 with 48 nations would be far larger and played in almost all different venues than the 24-team event the U.S. hosted in 1994.

Soccer officials planned to announce details of the joint bid by the U.S., Mexico and Canada at a news conference yesterday atop the Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan. The split of games was likely to be discussed.

“Don’t think for a moment that the political climate in the United States didn’t impact this,” former U.S. defender Alexi Lalas, now a Fox analyst, said Sunday. “A joint World Cup that includes Mexico probably garners additional support and sends a message.”

U.S. President Donald Trump has faced criticism over his plans — since stopped by courts — to bar new visas for people from Iran, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and Libya. FIFA President Gianni Infantino said last month than “any team, including the supporters and officials […] who qualify for a World Cup need to have access to the country, otherwise there is no World Cup. That is obvious.”

Infantino and the six confederation presidents have recommended the North and Central American and Caribbean region get six berths, any host included. But the proposal said the FIFA Council would decide on a structure in the event of co-hosts.

“You sit there and just shake your head: Where is this thing going to go and why?” said former U.S. goalkeeper Kasey Keller, currently an ESPN analyst. “Who knows, maybe they’ll move it to 68 teams by that time? It’s so hard to tell what FIFA’s thinking or what they’re doing or what’s the process after the last bidding fiasco. I guess you just have to trust the people closest to it, that they know what they’re doing.”

FIFA announced last May that the 2026 vote will take place in May 2020 and said in October that the previous two World Cup hosts — Europe and Asia — will not be eligible to bid.

A joint effort could lessen costs in a process through which legal documents and promotion are exorbitant. The failed U.S. bid to host in 2018 or 2022 cost USD9 million, of which about half was funded by the U.S. Soccer Federation. Major League Soccer and its owners gave about half the remaining contributions. AP