2026 World Cup to be held in U.S.A./Mexico/Canada

AndyBoBandy

So, who's up for a trip back to Giants Stadium!

https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2018/0613/970197-us-canada-and-mexico-to-host-2026-fifa-world-cup/

Trigger

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

So, who's up for a trip back to Giants Stadium!

Going to be some amount of travelling involved for teams.

murpho999

astradave wrote: »

Going to be some amount of travelling involved for teams.

Airplanes can handle that no problem.

SlickRic

Voting totals:

134-65 to North Americans

GavRedKing

The USA at this stage could have easily held it again on their own.

They've better stadiums and more fans of the game now than they had in 94.

Travelling will be a nightmare but Russia isnt exactly a small country to get around either.

Its certainly a better decision than giving the 2022 one to Qatar thats for sure.

Trigger

murpho999 wrote: »

Airplanes can handle that no problem.

Obviously

Will need something to get over the wall anyways

Agent Coulson

Going to be a lot of defencive wall jokes, memes etc coming.

Trigger

GavRedKing wrote: »

The USA at this stage could have easily held it again on their own.

They've better stadiums and more fans of the game now than they had in 94.

Travelling will be a nightmare but Russia isnt exactly a small country to get around either.

Its certainly a better decision than giving the 2022 one to Qatar thats for sure.

It’s a better decision than giving it to Morocco too, most of not all of the infrastructure will already be in place

Trigger

Agent Coulson wrote: »

Going to be a lot of defencive wall jokes, memes etc coming.

Too late

Iang87

astradave wrote: »

Going to be some amount of travelling involved for teams.

I'd imagine they'll base groups in areas. You wont have a group game being played in vancouver and then mexico city whereas you may have 2 groups on the east coast of the US, 2 groups in Canada and 2 in Mexico.

Knockouts you'd assume would be in the larger NFL stadiums

Huexotzingo

Strange to include Mexico. They have major problems with drug cartels?

Tippex

astradave wrote: »

It’s a better decision than giving it to Morocco too, most of not all of the infrastructure will already be in place

I thought it funny that Blatter the mouthpiece made a statement that it could only go to morrocco as Fifa had agreed not to entertain bids from a couple of countries like the us, canada, mexico bid

GavRedKing

astradave wrote: »

It’s a better decision than giving it to Morocco too, most of not all of the infrastructure will already be in place

Ya, I know FIFA want to bring the game all around the planet but given it to Russia was a mistake and even worse was giving it to Qatar.

Awarding it to Morocco would have been nearly as bad as Qatar and would have littered the country with pointless stadiums.

The fact that roughly 33% of the votes went to Morocco in itself is worrying.

Agent Coulson

Huexotzingo wrote: »

Strange to include Mexico. They have major problems with drug cartels?

Compared to Russia and Qatar cartels are like a annoying fly.


Mexico 86 was a great World Cup.

AndyBoBandy

GavRedKing wrote: »

The fact that roughly 33% of the votes went to Morocco in itself is worrying.

It probably just means that about 67% of the vote couldn't be bought!

grumpymunster

Money and profit is not everything (FIFA are a long way from poor), Africa deserved it for me football mad continent who have only ever held the finals once. But this is FIFA so money and profit is everything.

LuckyLloyd

Good decision. 48 team world cup don't forget, so a bid on a huge scale was required.

Agent Coulson

grumpymunster wrote: »

Money and profit is not everything (FIFA are a long way from poor), Africa deserved it for me football mad continent who have only ever held the finals once. But this is FIFA so money and profit is everything.

How many African Countries could actually afford to hold it without bankrupting themselves and leaving white elephant stadiums all over the place?

s3rtvdbwfj81ch

do the 3 countries automatically qualify?

citytillidie

GavRedKing wrote: »

Ya, I know FIFA want to bring the game all around the planet but given it to Russia was a mistake and even worse was giving it to Qatar.

Awarding it to Morocco would have been nearly as bad as Qatar and would have littered the country with pointless stadiums.

The fact that roughly 33% of the votes went to Morocco in itself is worrying.

Also factor in 9 of the stadiums in Morocco were not even built NA was really the only choice. Now we have to wait to see which US cities will host along with the 3 Canadian (Montréal, Toronto and Edmonton) and Mexican cities (Monterrey, Guadlajara and Mexico City).

There will be 16 groups to split around the 16 cities, hmmm one group one city

Nunu

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

So, who's up for a trip back to Giants Stadium!

Original stadium was levelled but there is a brand spanking new version next door.

Fr Tod Umptious

Julia Quaint Kangaroo wrote: »

do the 3 countries automatically qualify?

Probably, but that still leaves a whopping 45 places up for grabs.

Trigger

grumpymunster wrote: »

Money and profit is not everything (FIFA are a long way from poor), Africa deserved it for me football mad continent who have only ever held the finals once. But this is FIFA so money and profit is everything.

Could Morocco really have afforded the infrastructure that would be needed to put in place to host this though?

grumpymunster

Agent Coulson wrote: »

How many African Countries could actually afford to hold it without bankrupting themselves and leaving white elephant stadiums all over the place?

As it stands of course but why has it grown so large - what is the point of nearly 25% of FIFA affiliated teams appearing. It is supposed to be the finals it no longer is and for the most part will be utterly boring until the last 8.

It is now about greed nothing more than that - so by your logic we can now look forward to a US, German, Japan/China hosts ongoing (though the German World Cups were great fun).

Royale with Cheese

2030 to go to somewhere in Western Europe, surely? It'll be 24 years by that stage since a World Cup was hosted in what is essentially the football capital of the world, far too long.

murpho999

Huexotzingo wrote: »

Strange to include Mexico. They have major problems with drug cartels?

Nothing wrong with Mexico, it's a great footballing country.

Drug cartels don't tend to shoot visiting football supporters anyway.

US crime is worse.

LuckyLloyd

astradave wrote: »

Could Morocco really have afforded the infrastructure that would be needed to put in place to host this though?

Morocco would have been a disaster. This will be the biggest world cup ever, it required the kind of flexibility and scale that the North American bid offered.

Agent Coulson

grumpymunster wrote: »

As it stands of course but why has it grown so large - what is the point of nearly 25% of FIFA affiliated teams appearing. It is supposed to be the finals it no longer is and for the most part will be utterly boring until the last 8.

It is now about greed nothing more than that - so by your logic we can now look forward to a US, German, Japan/China hosts ongoing (though the German World Cups were great fun).

So by your logic FIFA should bankrupt Countries for a couple of games of football.

GavRedKing

Julia Quaint Kangaroo wrote: »

do the 3 countries automatically qualify?

Mexico are nearly always at WCs, USA have done well too in recent times, bar the latest f**k up, something like 50% qualification record.

Canada have only made 1 appearance so for them its a steal.

An expanded 48 team WC will mean theres plenty of games to go around and I'd guess USA will host the majority of teams and games.

murpho999

Royale with Cheese wrote: »

2030 to go to somewhere in Western Europe, surely? It'll be 24 years by that stage since a World Cup was hosted in what is essentially the football capital of the world, far too long.

Bids cannot come from Asia or North America so it's open to the rest.

England will go for it and talk of a joint Argentina and Uruguay bid.

Tournament so big now it's going to be hard to find suitable hosts.

Trigger

murpho999 wrote: »

Nothing wrong with Mexico, it's a great footballing country.

Drug cartels don't tend to shoot visiting football supporters anyway.

US crime is worse.

Plus they have some fantastic stadiums

GavRedKing

Royale with Cheese wrote: »

2030 to go to somewhere in Western Europe, surely? It'll be 24 years by that stage since a World Cup was hosted in what is essentially the football capital of the world, far too long.

England or a joint England, Scotland Wales bid or Spain would be my bet if it was Western Europe.

namloc1980

48 teams in 16 groups of 3. Going to be an unwieldy beast. Ludicrous number of teams. And no way Morocco would have been able to host that.

The Backwards Man

Whatever about 48 teams, 3 per group cheapens the whole thing for me.

Laois_Man

namloc1980 wrote: »

48 teams in 16 groups of 3. Going to be an unwieldy beast. Ludicrous number of teams. And no way Morocco would have been able to host that.

Is that definitely the format?
I assumed it would have been 12 groups of 4?
Are the additional 16 teams gonna mostly be the likes of New Zealand and Asian teams?
I'd hope it would revert back to all runners up in UEFA groups automatically qualifying!

I'd also expect the tournament hosting to go a similar direction to Euro 2020 with several countries hosting and none automatically qualifying. Might get a couple of World Cup Finals games in Dublin!

grumpymunster

Agent Coulson wrote: »

So by your logic FIFA should bankrupt Countries for a couple of games of football.

And that is what you took from that - good night

grumpymunster

Royale with Cheese wrote: »

2030 to go to somewhere in Western Europe, surely? It'll be 24 years by that stage since a World Cup was hosted in what is essentially the football capital of the world, far too long.

Russia is European Federation

s3rtvdbwfj81ch

grumpymunster wrote: »

Russia is European Federation

Western Europe :rolleyes::rolleyes:

Gbear

GavRedKing wrote: »

Travelling will be a nightmare but Russia isnt exactly a small country to get around either.

It's not like they're hosting games in Vladivostok. The area's probably no bigger than Poland/Ukraine but even then it's stretching what's practical.

Toronto-> LA is twice the distance between St Petersburg/Sochi, never mind having to get one to somewhere like Mexico city.

And it's a bit different if you have a load of cities in a sort of france-sized area, and then 2 or 3 others scattered about. If every city is 4000km away from every other one, it makes the whole thing a bit daft.

It's only 2000km odd from London to Kiev and clubs already moan about having to make those kinds of trips in the CL.

You could probably host a 48 team tournament in just California, or New England, New York and New Jersey.

citytillidie

Canada and Mexico to host 10 games each with USA hosting the other 60 and all games from the Quarter finals on will be in the USA.

With the 16 groups that leaves one UEFA team in each group.

Asia - 8 teams
Africa - 9 teams
North America - 6 teams including Canada, Mexico and USA
South America - 6 teams
Oceania - 1 team
UEFA - 16 teams

A play off tournament to test the infrastructure with 6 teams, none from UEFA to get the final 2 spots.

One team per confederation with the exception of UEFA + one additional team from the confederation of the host country;

Two teams to be seeded based on the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking. The seeded teams will play for a FIFA World Cup berth against the winners of the first two knockout games involving the four unseeded teams;

Tournament to be played in the host country(ies) and to be used as a test event for the FIFA World Cup;

https://www.fifa.com/about-fifa/news/y=2017/m=3/news=bureau-of-the-council-recommends-slot-allocation-for-the-2026-fifa-wor-2878254.html

grumpymunster

Julia Quaint Kangaroo wrote: »

Western Europe :rolleyes::rolleyes:

That is not how FIFA do it Russia is a European World Cup. Between Italy in 1990 and Germany 2006 Western Europe got three World Cups with this one it means we have got 4 from 9.
Europe gets its fair share.

s3rtvdbwfj81ch

ok then

Berserker

namloc1980 wrote: »

48 teams in 16 groups of 3. Going to be an unwieldy beast. Ludicrous number of teams. And no way Morocco would have been able to host that.

How many teams will qualify from each group? Will it be as bad as the Euros? The RoI & NI will be strong candidates to qualify in that case.

grumpymunster

There is no doubt the NAFTA world cup will be excellent from a spectacle point of view, the Yanks do love putting on a show. And in their turn it is a fantastic place to hold it but this is a world game which is becoming too marginalised, 48 teams at a final is crazy - there is no logic to that. This is akin to FFP in some ways.

Why not have all 211 playing around robin then one world cup can run seamlessly into another, junkets all round be deadly.

namloc1980

Berserker wrote: »

How many teams will qualify from each group? Will it be as bad as the Euros? The RoI & NI be strong candidates to qualify in that case.

Top two in each group into the last 32. It's a crap format. Greed over everything else.

Agent Coulson

grumpymunster wrote: »

There is no doubt the NAFTA world cup will be excellent from a spectacle point of view, the Yanks do love putting on a show. And in their turn it is a fantastic place to hold it but this is a world game which is becoming too marginalised, 48 teams at a final is crazy - there is no logic to that. This is akin to FFP in some ways.

Why not have all 211 playing around robin then one world cup can run seamlessly into another, junkets all round be deadly.

I think this is the World Cup for you.

CONIFA

http://www.conifa.org/en/2017/09/03/conifa-brings-2018-world-football-cup-to-london/

Father Hernandez

No doubt USA, Canada & Mexico was the better option of hosting the WC over Morocco. Better and more equipped existing stadia that can be used for sports after the WC. Only have to look at SA stadiums after 2010 to see what kind of burdens they've placed on the country to which they'll hardly ever be used again for the money spent on them and I've seen them first hand.

To be honest, the problem lies with expanding the WC to 48 teams, it's not nearly as prestigious IMO as having a 32 team WC. To be in the WC, you should have to be the best (or one of) in your confederations and in 2026 there'll only be 2 games to get through the group stage after all that traveling, it'll be over for teams before they know it.

grumpymunster

Agent Coulson wrote: »

I think this is the World Cup for you.

CONIFA

http://www.conifa.org/en/2017/09/03/conifa-brings-2018-world-football-cup-to-london/

Do you really - try reading some of my posts.

Kolido

Don't like the idea of 3 team groups, it can give an unfair advantage in the final group games. 32 teams is more than enough imo

banie01

It's a logistical nightmare really.
Yes flight schedules will be able to cope, but I'd have serious concerns as to whether TSA and airports can cope with the added volume.
I can see needing to be at airports for internal flights 4hrs before takeoff being a norm for this WC.
The VISA issues for fans will also be a nightmare, particularly if your team progress through to last 16.
Mexico is an entry stamp, but US and Canada require pre-approval.
What if your team ends up at Toronto NY and say Mexico City, and you get an ESTA but a Canadian refusal?

Jimbob1977

This means automatic qualification for three host countries and a harder path for some continents.

Still, I think the hosts will do a great job.