In a press release earlier today it came as a surprise to many, but not everyone that Canada and Mexico will put together a joint bid to hos the 2026 World Cup, if the bid is successful.
It’s reported that the bid calls for 60 of the 80 games to be played in the US, while Canada will host 10 and Mexico get the additional 10 matches.
As we have come to understand any and all final decisions are made by FIFA, (the money men) and the proposal with Canada and Mexico is an agreement together as mentioned by the US Soccer President Sunil Gulati at a press conference held in the Freedom Tower in lower Manhattan.
He was joined by Victor Montagliani, President of both the Canadian Soccer Association and CONCACAF and Mexico Football Federation President Decio de Maria.
The overall agreement simply calls for all games from the quarter-finals forward to be held in the US, making several in Canada and Mexico feeling like we have a wall between our Countries.
Canada has only qualified for the World Cup once (1986) when Mexico was the host and also out of the CONCACAF qualifying structure.
Gulati mentioned that the decision of host qualifications id soly the decision of the FIFA Council and added “What I can say is there has never been a World Cup where the host country or host countries have not been automatically qualified for the World Cup.”
Mexico has been to 15 prior World Cup finals that include two as the host Countries in 1970 and 1986, where the US has been to 10, which included only one as the host country in 1994.
The 2026 tournament will be announced by FIFA in 2020 will be known as only the first using FIFA’s expanded format.
The current format which will be used in Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022 currently involves 32 teams with 64 matches, but the new format will feature 16 groups of three with the top two from each pool advancing to a 32-team knockout.
The overall tournament time period will continue to be set for 32 day’s and when asked if more bids are expected Montagliani simply replied “Could be.”
Speculation is that there won’t be any bids from Europe and Asia will be barred from hosting the 2026 tournament as Russia is hosting the World Cup in 2018 with Qatar having it’s showcase in 2022.
Eventually when 2026 is here there will have been 32 years and seven World Cups since the 1994 event held in the US and Europe having 3, Asia 2, Africa 1 and South America also 1 that have served as a host.
It’s reported that China say’s they have slim hopes of hosting the 2026 world Cup as they are spending time on the intention of hosting the 2030 tournament bid.
A couple of questions remain with the first being what Cities will offer a “bribe” to FIFA and what will the final price tag be.
