African challenger enters 2026 World Cup picture

North America has a late challenge from North Africa in the contest to host the 2026 World Cup.

Morocco will also bid for the tournament, with its announcement coming on FIFA’s deadline day on Friday.

Morocco’s last-minute move takes on the joint bid by the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

Morocco formally launched its bid and sent relevant documents to FIFA, the Royal Moroccan Football Federation said in a brief two-sentence statement.

It’s the North African kingdom’s fifth attempt at hosting the World Cup.

The United States, Canada, and Mexico launched their joint bid in April and hoped to be awarded the World Cup unchallenged, with no other bids seemingly on the horizon. But FIFA decided to keep the contest open, and Morocco made the deadline — just.

“We’ve always been prepared for the fact that other countries could also decide to bid for the 2026 FIFA World Cup,” said U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati, chairperson of the joint North American bid. “Competition is good.”

The 2026 World Cup is open to bids only from the Americas, Africa, and Oceania. Europe and Asia were ineligible because those continents will host the next two World Cups, in Russia in 2018 and in Qatar in 2022.

The U.S.-Canada-Mexico and Morocco bids are the only two for 2026, FIFA confirmed. The world body could decide on the 2026 host as early as June 13 next year at its congress in Moscow on the eve of Russia’s World Cup.

If neither bid meets FIFA’s requirements, the process could still be reopened to other bidders ahead of a final decision in 2020, but that’s unlikely to happen.

If successful, the U.S.-Canada-Mexico bid would return the World Cup to the United States for the first time since 1994.