FIFA World Cup '26: News & Analysis

Time for a new thread now that the 2026 WC has been awarded. Any chance that Vancouver returns to the fold as a host city?

You really think we're getting two venues in the same state?Well you seemed OK with SF and LA on his list. I thought I saw somewhere that FIFA could add host cities to the potential list if they so choose.

Any chance that Vancouver returns to the fold as a host city?No. With only 16 final host cities to be selected and 23 in consideration, no way in hell would FIFA or the United Bid Committee consider cities that opted out from the start. At best, Vancouver could present its candidacy to host some of the WCQ playoffs. If anything, I've been wondering how the distribution of games will work. 80/16 = 5; if all the venues get the same number of games, then we might be looking at only two venues each in Canada and Mexico (since they're getting 10 games total). If that happens, then Canda's games are 99.9% booked for Toronto and Montreal.

2026 FIFA World Cup™ bidding process – report of independent audit company published The auditors’ report is available here.

Well you seemed OK with SF and LA on his list.Who's to say if California will still be one state by then

Ideas for the official mascot:

Sucks to be Team I1 - play on match day 1 and then wait until match day 12 for your second match (and then your first knockout game 4 days later). Actually, to be honest you could delete every word in that last sentence after the first and you'd still get a pretty accurate description (not that I can 100% blame USA2026 for this). JI1 will almost certainly be the United States

Here's the proposed schedule from the Bid Book mentioned above. Sucks to be Team I1 - play on match day 1 and then wait until match day 12 for your second match (and then your first knockout game 4 days later). Actually, to be honest you could delete every word in that last sentence after the first and you'd still get a pretty accurate description (not that I can 100% blame USA2026 for this). J

This is my picks for American venues: Atlanta Boston Dallas Houston Los Angeles Miami New York San Francisco Seattle Washington DC

No. With only 16 final host cities to be selected and 23 in consideration, no way in hell would FIFA or the United Bid Committee consider cities that opted out from the start. At best, Vancouver could present its candidacy to host some of the WCQ playoffs. If anything, I've been wondering how the distribution of games will work. 80/16 = 5; if all the venues get the same number of games, then we might be looking at only two venues each in Canada and Mexico (since they're getting 10 games total). If that happens, then Canda's games are 99.9% booked for Toronto and Montreal.Especially since Seattle is still in the running.. While I think having Vancouver and Seattle hosting would be amazing for purely selfish reasons, I'm not sure FIFA would want 2 cities in a relatively "low" population area hosting when there are other areas they could host in and have the same, or larger, footprint.