The 2026 World Cup will be held in the United States, Canada and Mexico after they beat Morocco by a margin of 69 votes to host the tournament which will be expanded to 48 teams for the first time.
The Moroccan bid used its final address to Fifa congress to point out that the country has a ban on weapons and would not hike up ticket prices to increase profit, a thinly veiled swipe at their rivals. But it was not enough to sway the room as they lost the vote, with the United bid receiving 134 votes to their 65.
The USA-led bid was judged by a Fifa taskforce to be vastly superior to their north African rivals on technical grounds, with a total of 23 stadiums, already built or under construction, at their disposal. The Moroccan bid, while enticing some federations with its commitment to fan engagement in a footballing nation, would have had to build or renovate all of the 14 stadiums in its bid book.
That difference, alongside the promise of £4b in extra profit for the federations, was enough to convince some undecided voters to side with the United campaign. The United bid opened their final 15 minute pitch by handing the stage to Canadian Alphonso Davies, a 17-year-old born in a Liberian refugee camp in Ghana. “In Canada, they’ve welcomed me and I know they’ll welcome you,” he said.
Of 211 federations, 203 submitted a vote. That number accounted for the four bidding nations who were ineligible, plus three American-governed territories who abstained because of a perceived conflict of interest plus Ghana, who did not attend congress after corruption allegations. The way the federations voted was made public for the first time, perhaps the most surprising revelation being Russia voting for the United bid despite political tensions between the nations.
The Fifa heirarchy, including president Gianni Infantino, preferred the United bid which has promised to generate around an $11bn (£8.24bn) profit for Fifa compared to the projected $5.7bn (£4.48bn) a Morocco World Cup would raise. The Moroccans had been keen to emphasise its more ‘fan friendly’ pricing in contrast with the US bid which stated an average ticket price of $431 (£322), a significant increase on the Brazil and Russia World Cups.
It was the first World Cup vote since 2010 when the FA suffered humiliation after Russia won the right to host the 2018 World Cup. Allegations of corruption immediately followed that vote with Qatar winning the 2022 tournament. The prospect of a more controversy-free world cup also swayed Fifa in favour of the United bid.
Infantino was took the opportunity to claim the Fifa landscape has drastically changed under his leadership, listing a number of changes made since taking over from Sepp Blatter. “It was clinically dead when I took over two years ago,” he said. “Now it is alive. There are no longer additional costs in the balance sheet.”
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