By Andrew Warshaw
April 10 – It’s been an open secret for months but now the United States, Mexico and Canada look set to formally announce a joint bid for the 2026 World Cup later today.
CONCACAF made the decision to support the bid at its congress in Aruba at the weekend with US Soccer federation president Sunil Gulati Gulati shortly to appear with his US and Mexican counterparts Victor Montagliani and Decio de Maria at a news conference in New York.
Interestingly the three-way announcement looks set to come before FIFA have even outlined bidding regulations, expected to be formalised at next month’s FIFA Congress in Bahrain, while there has been widespread concern that Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant policies might adversely affect a tripartite bid. Even if he serves a second term, however, Trump would not be president in 2026.
“Canada, the U.S. and Mexico are aiming for a joint bid, the idea has been around for a while, discussions are continuing and it is a very exciting proposition if it comes to fruition,” Montagliani said last week.
The formal bidding process for what will be the first World Cup to involve 48 teams will not begin until later this year and will conclude in 2020. The US which hosted in 1994, was favourite to do so again in 2022 but that vote went to Qatar after a bidding process, together with 2018, that it still the subject of an ongoing investigation. The fallout prompted the biggest corruption probe in football history, opening up avenues of investigation in the North and South American regions in particular beyond the bidding process for World Cup football.
Mexico has staged the finals twice, the last time in 1986, while newcomers Canada held the 2015 Women’s World Cup. With Europe and Asia both barred from bidding for 2026 because they will have hosted the previous two tournaments, the only possible challenge to CONCACAF seems likely to come from Morocco who have failed four times to win hosting rights. But with 16 more teams, it is virtually impossible Morocco could stage the finals on their own without help from another African country. Co-hosting with Portugal and Spain, as has been mooted, is a non-starter.
Of more concern to CONCACAF is how many automatic bids would be awarded to any three-way host, with one of the trio possibly having to qualify and therefore potentially failing to make it to the finals. However, FIFA is reportedly considering a scenario under which CONCACAF would have six automatic berths, with the three co-hosts grabbing half of them.
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