2026 hosts are ‘deeply united’
– President Enrique Pena Nieto yesterday hailed the awarding of host duties for the 2026 World Cup to Mexico, the United States and Canada as recognition that North America is “deeply united.”
Their joint bid to host football’s main event was selected amid troubled times in relations between the three neighbours, who are quarreling over the future of a free trade agreement that has bound them since 1994.
The North American bid received 134 of the 203 votes, beating out Morocco, which polled 65 in the ballot at a Fifa congress held in Moscow on the eve of the 2018 World Cup.
“It is not just our peoples and our families, our companies and our businessmen and women, football itself knows that Canada, the US and Mexico are deeply united,” Pena Nieto said in a video posted on Twitter.
US-Mexican relations have been strained since President Donald Trump won election in 2016 after a campaign laced with anti-Mexican barbs and promises to build a wall on the two countries’ border and make Mexico pay for it.
Pena Nieto has twice cancelled plans to visit Washington after testy phone calls with Trump, and relations hit a new low last month when the US slapped steep tariffs on steel and aluminum from Mexico, Canada and the European Union.
The Mexican president brushed the hostilities aside, congratulating all three countries on the “great news”. He underlined the fact that Mexico – which hosted the 1970 and 1986 World Cups – will now become the first country to have hosted the tournament three times.
Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also hailed the news, which the US President said was the result of “a great deal of hard work”. – AFP
The 2026 World Cup will be the first to be hosted in three countries and the first since 2002 (South Korea and Japan) to be held in multiple nations.
The three countries will share the responsibility of hosting by staging 60 matches in the United States and 10 each in Canada and Mexico.
The 2026 tournament will be the first expanded tournament featuring 48 teams, up from the current 32-team tournament.
The final will be held at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, home to the NFL’s New York Giants and New York Jets.