FIFA votes to fast-track 2026 World Cup bid

FIFA’s full membership voted to approve a plan to fast-track the 2026 World Cup host bidding process yesterday as part of a FIFA Congress that also included a vow from president Gianni Infantino to examine the transfer system. There was also an awkward debate involving the federations of Israel and Palestine.

Ninety-three percent of the 209 voting members of the Congress approved the 2026 plan, setting the United States-led North American bid on course to officially land the hosting rights as early as June 2018.

Any other nations interested in bidding have to express interest by Aug. 11; bids then have to meet a list of FIFA’s technical specifications by March 2018. Given the quick turnaround and FIFA’s restrictions on which confederations are allowed to bid, the North Americans are prohibitive favorites.

The North American bid had initially asked FIFA to grant it an exclusive window to meet the technical specifications, but with an eye toward the importance of transparency in FIFA’s post-scandal world - the FIFA Council amended that to allow for any other nations that might want to bid.

“We have to make sure this bidding process is bulletproof,” Infantino said.

Sunil Gulati, the president of U.S. Soccer, said that he and the other bid leaders want to avoid being presumptuous, but that it is difficult not to think of how soccer fans would react to the World Cup returning to the U.S. for the first time since 1994.