CULTURE
US, Mexico and Canada announce 2026 World Cup bid
2017-04-11 10:58 GMT+8
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Dang Zheng
The United States, Mexico and Canada announced on Monday that they were making a joint bid to host the 2026 World Cup, which the US soccer chief said would produce the biggest financial boon ever for FIFA.
No nation from Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF), the governing body for soccer in North and Central America and the Caribbean, has ever hosted the tournament since the United States in 1994.
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Sunil Gulati (C), president of the United States Soccer Federation (USSF), Canadian CONCACAF President Victor Montagliani (L) and Mexican Football Federation President Decio De Maria sign a unified bid for the 2026 soccer world cup in New York city on April 10, 2017./VCG Photo
The 2018 World Cup will be in Russia, while Qatar hosts the event in 2022. The bidding process for the 2026 tournament is expected to begin later this year and to run until 2020.
"We announce our bid to bring the World Cup back to the United States, to Canada and Mexico in 2026," US Soccer President Sunil Gulati told a news conference in the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan.
"We look forward to welcoming the world after what we hope is a successful bid."
Gulati said the initial plan was for 60 of the 80 World Cup games to be played in the US, with Canada and Mexico hosting 10 each. All matches from the quarter-finals onwards would be in the US.
Mexico hosted the World Cup in 1970 and 1986.
Decio de Maria, president of the Mexican Football Federatio, attends a press conference announcing the bid for the 2026 World Cup in New York city on April 10, 2017./VCG Photo
The CONCACAF region is widely viewed as favourite to win the 2026 World Cup, given FIFA rules that restrict Europe and Asia from hosting again so quickly. FIFA is soccer's world governing body.
Africa, whose only World Cup was in South Africa in 2010, however, would be able to bid and Morocco is the most likely candidate. Newly-elected president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) Ahmad Ahmad said he would back such an effort.
Some reports suggested that Morocco, which failed in bids for four previous World Cups, could team up with Spain and possibly Portugal in a joint effort.
But Gulati touted the financial clout of the North American bid.
"We've got 500 million people in these three countries. This will be an extraordinarily successful World Cup on financial and economic grounds."
As for whether US President Donald Trump’s plan for a border wall to stem illegal immigration from Mexico was a hurdle, Gulati said Trump encouraged the bid and that the joint effort has required and won support from the governments of all three countries.
(Source: agencies)
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