Twelve months ago, the World Cup appeared to be coming together well, with fans excited to watch the world’s most popular game in matches in sixteen host cities (2 in Canada, 3 in Mexico, 11 in the United States). Now, with just over a year to go until Mexico kicks off the first game of the tournament at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, tensions between the three nations are looking rockier than ever. The “unity” bid is rapidly falling apart.
English fans had hoped that the tournament offered their side one of the best opportunities in decades for taking home the trophy under the new management of German boss Thomas Tuchel. England are fourth favourites to win the 2026 World Cup according to NetBet behind Brazil, France, and Spain. However, as global tensions escalate, some may prefer to stay at home instead of chancing their luck and getting detained at the US border.
Trump has a history inflaming tensions with Mexico, with chants of “build the wall” defining the tone of the 2016 US elections. The World Cup bid in 2017 was supposed to help smooth relations between the US and it southern neighbour, with Canada also joining the bid to make it a continent-wide tournament. However, since returning to White House earlier this year Trump appears to have made antagonising the United States’ neighbours central to his political platform with tariffs and ideas of creating a “51st state”.
Staging a mega event that relied on three countries with two long borders working in concert across an entire continent was always going to be complex. Now there are questions as to whether difficulties with visas and difficult border crossings could mean that stadiums will be left half-empty. Visa wait times at US embassies in some countries that are expected to qualify for the tournament like Turkey and Colombia, are already longer than the time remaining until the tournament kicks off.
The last time a World Cup had more than one host country was in 2002, when FIFA decided that Japan and South Korea should share duties. Despite much smaller distances between the countries and better transport links, that World Cup the two countries bickered throughout the process over everything from ticket revenues to which country should be first in the title of the tournament. That was with two countries that enjoyed good relations.
Could the three countries put the political tensions behind them to get the tournament off the ground? FIFA, for its part, seems to be trying to appeal to Trump’s love of profits to get the tournament back on track. A spokesperson said: “We continue to work with various departments and agencies of the US Government to ensure the US can capitalize on this once-in-a-generation opportunity to tap into billions of dollars in positive financial benefits and goodwill, and bring millions of people from different nations and communities together to celebrate in the United States.” Only time will tell if the approach will work.
