If you’re a football fan, the craze around the FIFA World Cup 2026 has probably taken over your life.
From next week, the biggest World Cup in history will unfold across the United States, Canada and Mexico.
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But why is the tournament being held in three countries? Al Jazeera breaks it down.
‘United As One’
Initially, the US, Canada and Mexico announced plans to field individual bids for the 2026 World Cup hosting rights. But later they opted to join hands, presenting themselves with the slogan “United As One”.
In 2017, the football associations of the North American trio officially announced their alliance, calling it the “United Bid”.
A year later, at FIFA’s 68th Congress in Moscow, Russia, FIFA’s member associations cast votes, and ultimately the United Bid won 67 percent of the 200 votes.
With that, history was made, as FIFA announced a World Cup would be held in three countries for the first time in the tournament’s 96-year history.
Expanded format needs more venues, huge infrastructure
FIFA’s decision to expand the participation pool from 32 to 48 teams, and subsequently add an extra knockout round, meant the 2026 tournament is set to feature a whopping 104 matches, the most in the World Cup’s history and 40 more than the total at the 2022 edition in Qatar.
It is practically impossible for a single nation to host that many games, opening the door to the idea of more countries coming together.
What also helped the US, Canada and Mexico’s joint bid was that each of the stadiums included in their bid proposal was already built, did not require major construction work and boasted an average capacity of more than 68,000.
All candidate host cities were also found to have existing transportation, accommodation, medical, technology, and other infrastructure that met or exceeded the requirements outlined by FIFA.
Fast forward to today, the 2026 World Cup will be played across 16 stadiums in 16 cities, many of which host matches in the National Football League (NFL), Major League Soccer (MLS), and Liga MX, the top-flight Mexican football league.
Although the World Cup hosting rights are being shared by three countries, the US is hosting 78 games – three times more than Canada (13) and Mexico (13) combined.
The majority of the high-stakes games, including the quarterfinals, semifinals and final, will be played in the US.
World Cup 2026: the most lucrative sports event
An analysis by the World Trade Organization has estimated that the 2026 World Cup will produce $80.1bn in gross output across three countries, including $30.5bn in the US alone.
As The Guardian reported, FIFA’s most recent financial report showed football’s governing body will make $13bn from the four-year cycle culminating in the 2026 World Cup, almost $9bn of which will be in this year.
In comparison, FIFA earned $7.5bn in revenue through four years of commercial deals tied to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, and $6.4bn for the 2015-2018 cycle leading up to the Russia World Cup.
The Paris 2024 Olympics generated $5.24bn.
Simply put, the earnings from the 2026 World Cup, spread across North America, will make it the most lucrative sports event to date.
Regional clusters
To reduce the logistical challenge of travelling across three countries, FIFA has divided the venues into three regional clusters as follows:
- Western region: Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles
- Central region: Guadalajara, Mexico City, Monterrey, Houston, Dallas, Kansas City
- Eastern region: Atlanta, Miami, Toronto, Boston, Philadelphia, New York/New Jersey
Teams will mostly play their group games within one cluster, but not always.
For example, Brazil play all their Group C matches in the eastern cluster, across New York/New Jersey, Philadelphia and Miami.
But South Africa begin their Group A campaign in Mexico City in the central cluster, but have to move to Atlanta in the east for the second game before flying back to Monterrey.
Bosnia and Herzegovina have the longest travel route of any World Cup team during the group stage, with a distance of about 5,000km (3,100 miles).
They begin their tournament in Toronto before making a 3,500km (2,200-mile) journey to Los Angeles for their second game. Their final group game is another 1,500km (900 miles) away, in Seattle.
While some teams will have travel respite in the group stage, should they advance further, travel fatigue may arrive from the knockouts, with matches scattered all over.
The FIFA World Cup begins on June 11. You can follow the action on Al Jazeera’s dedicated World Cup 2026 page with all the latest news, match build-up and live text commentary, and keep up to date with group standings, real-time match results and schedules.
