Cordeiro: Joint US, Canadian and Mexican tournament will transform game
Staging the 2026 World Cup in North America will be “transformative” for football in the region and worldwide, the leaders of the joint bid said after their crushing win over Morocco.
Canada, Mexico and the United States defied predictions of a close race at the 68th Fifa Congress to win by 134 votes to 65.
After the result was revealed on a giant screen at Moscow’s Expocentre, US Soccer Federation boss Carlos Cordeiro said it was “a hugely emotional moment” for the entire team.
“Bringing the World Cup back to North America will be transformative for soccer in my county and Canada and Mexico,” he added.
“It will more than re-engage the grassroots game, it will revolutionise it. We have three and a half million registered players in my country and I would like to see that double or triple.
“We want soccer to be the preeminent game in the US and that goal matches the demographic changes in the country already unfolding.”
While Cordeiro and his colleagues have spent the last few months extolling their bid’s numerous strengths, the reality is there are 11 billion reasons why they beat Morocco – that is the projected profit in dollars to be distributed to Fifa’s 211 members.
Morocco, which has now lost five World Cup bids, could only offer half as much.
The tournament is increasing to 48 teams with 80 games and, with dozens of large, world-class venues, access to the world’s richest sports market and no need to build anything, the United bid also scored well on Fifa’s technical assessment.
The credibility gap between United’s certainty and Morocco’s ambition was repeatedly underlined by football’s governing body in the build-up to the vote.
But Morocco had hope, mainly based on the belief that enough countries were so angry with US President Donald Trump they would not be able to stomach handing him a public-relations coup, particularly after his crass attempts to bully voters via Twitter.
As it turned out, the North American bid was right when they said they were better together and Canadian Soccer Association president Steve Reed summed it up when he said: “The politics of today are not necessarily the politics of tomorrow or five years down the road. We have had overwhelming and very strong support from all of our governments.”
The Moroccan team looked devastated when the defeat’s extent was revealed but their FA chief Fouzi Lekjaa magnanimously congratulated the North Americans.
Some Morocco backers clearly switched sides late on – most notably Russia, whose president Vladimir Putin made a surprise visit to address the delegates.