Canadian, US and Mexican host cities named for 2026 World Cup
Fifa has announced the host cities for the 2026 World Cup, which will be cohosted by the US, Canada and Mexico.
The US will host 60 of the 80 matches in the tournament, including every game from the quarter-final onwards. Canada and Mexico will host 10 matches each.
The cities were announced in Western, Eastern and Central zones at a ceremony in New York on Thursday.
The cities from the West are Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Guadalajara.
In the Central zone the venues were named as Kansas City, Dallas, Atlanta, Houston, Monterrey and Mexico City. The Eastern zone hosts are New York/New Jersey, Boston, Philadelphia, Miami and Toronto.
The tournament will be the first World Cup to include 48 teams, expanding from its current capacity of 32. Fifa has yet to announce which of the venues will host matches in the knockout stages. The host for the 1994 World Cup final, the Rose Bowl, will not be a part of the 2026 tournament.
US cities and states lined up with tax breaks and millions of dollars in both public and private investments for a chance at hosting matches in 2026. Fifa’s calls for tax breaks and other funding assistance led cities including Minneapolis, Chicago and Glendale, Arizona, to drop out of the running in 2018.
Lawmakers and city officials elsewhere appear more willing to make concessions. The Republican governors of Georgia and Florida in May signed legislation eliminating sales taxes on tickets for World matches. Missouri lawmakers sent similar legislation to Republican governor Mike Parson last month. All three of those states ended up as host cities.
A US Soccer study said hosting World Cup matches could bring in up to $620m for cities. However, some experts have cast doubt on the economic benefits of hosting large sporting events.