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≡ FIFA WORLD CUP 2026 ≡
The latest tussle concerning the 2026 FIFA World Cup came Friday when Iran, one of the qualified countries, said it would not attend the 5 December Final Draw in Washington, D.C., as three of its football federation officials were denied visas to enter the U.S.
Iran federation spokesman Amir Mehdi Alavi told the English-language Tehran Times:
“We have informed FIFA that the decisions taken are unrelated to sport and that the members of the Iranian delegation will not participate in the World Cup draw.”
Four officials obtained visas: head coach Amir Ghalenoei, executive director Mehdi Kharati, international relations director Omid Jamali and Alavi. Federation president Mehdi Taj and two others had their applications denied.
The Trump Administration has tightened entry controls considerably via an Executive Order in June, with Iran on a list of 19 countries with restricted entry; exceptions were noted in the Order for:
“any athlete or member of an athletic team, including coaches, persons performing a necessary support role, and immediate relatives, traveling for the World Cup, Olympics, or other major sporting event as determined by the Secretary of State.”
Iran and Haiti are the two World Cup qualifiers impacted by the order.
Nevertheless, the Final Draw will go on next Friday and who plays where will be determined; it will be fascinating to see if Iran and/or Haiti end up placed in groups which play most or all of their matches in Canada or Mexico.
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Is this important? As the Iranian noted, this is “unrelated to sport” and all about the long-standing animosity with the U.S. since the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979. So, no.
It is a complete side show to the FIFA World Cup itself, which will expand to 48 teams and 104 matches in 2026 from 32 teams and 64 matches in 2022.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino (SUI) has said that six billion people around the world; global population estimates are at about 8.2 billion. For the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, he said five billion people would watch some part of the tournament, with the FIFA follow-up audience review listing 4.792 billion “intended to reflect the total number of people who engaged with the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 in any manner, extending beyond TV reach and audience measurement.”
So, a lot of people will have heard something about the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and the Trump Administration has made its success a priority, establishing a White House Task Force. And this is an important proof-of-concept for FIFA, which is organizing the tournament itself – no in-country organizing committees any more – out of its offices in Coral Gables, Florida. FIFA has even talked about expanding its organizing efforts outside of football, assuming its 2026 experiment is successful.
That will depend on three things, which above all else will make the 2026 FIFA World Cup a success. They are basic and obvious, but these are the things that count:
● (1) The teams and accompanying officials need to be able to travel, train and compete without undue difficulties.
This is obvious, but in a charged environment like the World Cup and especially in the U.S., this is not to be taken for granted. The security apparatus will be enormous and beyond threats from outsiders, have we forgotten already the Canadian women’s drone-spying scandal that surfaced at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games?
● (2) Spectators need to be able to get their purchased tickets and be able to get in and out of the stadia to watch the matches safely.
Again, totally obvious. But for the 2024 Copa America final at Hard Rock Stadium outside of Miami, Florida, an after-action report stated that “20,000 to 30,000 patrons had a plan to arrive early, park off site, then crash the entry gates with overwhelming numbers was not gathered and shared by any intelligence source. Had this information been known, our plan would have been modified for this contingency.”
But the stadium, police and security staff were not ready and the kickoff between Colombia and Argentina was delayed for 82 minutes while the situation was brought under some level of control. Fifty-four people were ejected and 26 people were arrested; the same stadium will host seven World Cup matches.
No doubt Hard Rock Stadium will be heavily secured; but there are a record 16 stadia involved in this World Cup. The enormous attention paid to the tournament make it an attractive target for political protests of all kinds (no, Israel did not qualify).
● (3) The broadcast of the matches, on all platforms, has to work perfectly.
This is the least likely of the three core competencies for the tournament to be affected, since all of the venues regularly host major events that are televised and the infrastructure in all (most?) are hardened against difficulties.
While trouble in a stadium directly affects the people attending, trouble with broadcasts will impact millions of viewers worldwide. Here, FIFA has help from its production team but also its broadcast partners, especially those who work in the 2026 stadiums on a continuous basis. In the U.S., FOX has the broadcast rights.
Taking care of those three things will almost guarantee a successful tournament for FIFA and although obvious, are not assured.
A wild card for the entire tournament, which will run for more than a month – 11 June to 19 July – would be civil unrest, possibly tied to 2026 state or local primary elections which will take place during the World Cup period (New York is the only state with a World Cup venue – in New Jersey – an election primary during the World Cup itself.
Fan festivals, which FIFA is very proud of, are less secure than the stadia and could be a target, mostly under the control of the local host committees rather than FIFA itself. And those host cities know it.
And, will there be other conflicts, international, political or cultural, which pop up during the tournament? There’s no “Olympic Truce” for FIFA and the Trump Administration is not going to be taking five weeks off.
All the other elements aren’t that important, because if the teams can play, the fans can see and people can watch the matches, the World Cup will be great. Because, in the end, the players and teams always are.
Rich Perelman
Editor
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