FIFA has decided to move forward with their host bidding process for the 2026 World Cup.
According to a report from The Guardian, FIFA voted almost unanimously to hasten the process for determining the hosting rights for 2026. Of the 209 voting members, 93% of them voted Thursday for:
Other countries have until 11 August to express interest in hosting the World Cup and must meet a list of Fifa’s technical specifications by March 2018. The decision to select any bidders will take place on 13 June 2018
[the_ad id=”80408″]
The decision to move the process forward was prompted due to a joint bid proposed by the soccer federations of the United States, Mexico, and Canada. Under the proposal presented to FIFA, the United States would host 60 of the 80 total World Cup matches including all games in the quarterfinals and later. Mexico and Canada would share the remaining 20 games.
United States Soccer Federation president Sunil Gulati commented on the strong prospects of the proposed hosting bid:
[the_ad id=”78455″]
“We have the luxury of being able to pick from stadiums and cities,” the US Soccer president, Sunil Gulati, said last month. “And given what’s happened in the last World Cups and some of the Olympic Games, the thought of building sports facilities that don’t have a long term use is not one that’s particularly inviting for anyone.
“So in all of our cases, we have stadiums that have exist for professional teams or other events. We think that’s that huge advantage not just for us, but for Fifa or the IOC, that infrastructure that’s in place or developed for the NFL or for Liga MX, is a far better solution than spending hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars on stadiums that don’t have use beyond the tournament.”
