Goal 9. Ensure the FIFA World Cup™ will be the Greatest show on the planet in 2026

“I think you’re going to have an event the likes of which maybe the world has never seen based on the enthusiasm I’ve seen,” said the 45^th and 47^th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, at the FIFA World Cup 2026 Final Draw in Washington, D.C., on 5 December 2025. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The most inclusive FIFA World Cup will certainly be historic as the first to feature 48 teams and three co-host countries. An estimated seven million fans will attend the 104 games and six billion around the planet are set to engage with the tournament from kick-off on 11 June to the final on 19 July.

There was unprecedented interest as fans were invited to enter the Random Selection Draw for match tickets. The third sales phase, which ran for just 33 days until mid-January 2026, saw more than half a billion requests from fans in all 211 FIFA member countries. Underlining the massive global appeal of the tournament, the number of requests outstrips the total of 44 million fans who attended the FIFA World Cup’s first 22 editions by more than 11 times.

Qualifying games started for some in 2023, but the 16 Host Cities in Canada, Mexico and the United States had confirmation of their 2026 summer plans when the tournament’s Match Schedule was announced in February 2024. A host of celebrities supported the announcement that the iconic Mexico City Stadium – known locally as the Estadio Azteca – will host the first of the tournament’s “104 Super Bowls” as President Infantino has described them on 11 June 2026. Dallas will host the most fixtures with nine, while the world champions will lift sport’s most iconic trophy at the New York New Jersey Stadium on Sunday 19 July 2026.

The Final Draw was equally star-studded with a spectacular show that determined the 12 four-team groups for the tournament. Since its first version in February 2024, the FIFA World Cup match schedule has been designed to minimise travel for teams and fans, and to maximise rest days between matches for all participating teams. The finalised allocation of venues and kick-off times optimised welfare conditions for players and supporters, while enabling the widest possible global audience to follow their teams across different time zones.

This complex exercise included a technical analysis of all venues – from average temperatures and cooling infrastructure to public transport and security – as well as collaborative discussions between various FIFA functional areas, including competition management, team services, medical, TV and broadcasting, and ticketing.

FIFA’s firm pledge and commitment to all stakeholders was to ensure that participants and partners would have the best possible conditions for the tournament, which extended to the playing surface too.

FIFA hosted its second Research Field Day at Michigan State University (MSU) in October 2024, focusing on high quality pitches for both matches and training sites for the final tournament. The Pitch Management team for FIFA World Cup 2026 drew invaluable data from the FIFA Club World Cup 2025, which the partnership with the University of Tennessee (UT) and MSU was expanded to include. President Infantino was impressed by the progressive use of technology to provide the best possible pitches across the varied conditions in each Host City and co-host country when he visited the project for himself at UT in Knoxville, USA, in February 2025.

Security around all tournament venues is always of paramount importance to FIFA and its global stakeholders and having the most secure conditions possible for the final tournament was the focus of the first Stadium and Security Conference, held in Atlanta, United States, in October 2024. At the event, FIFA’s Safety and Security Learning Platform was launched to provide support as well as safety and security advice at both the FIFA Club World Cup 2025 and FIFA World Cup 2026. Furthermore, President Trump established a White House Task Force for both tournaments, hosting the first meeting in May 2025 when he said the group would “help plan the biggest, safest and most extraordinary soccer tournament in history”. Almost 2.5 million fans attended 63 games in 12 stadiums and 11 Host Cities at the FIFA Club World Cup 2025 with no major incidents.

Working closely with the co-host nations, FIFA has sought to ensure FIFA World Cup 2026 match ticket-holders will be able to enter each country smoothly. The launch of the FIFA PASS (Priority Appointment Scheduling System) in November 2025 had that particular goal in mind regarding immigration to the U.S. Active from January 2026 and led by the U.S. Department of State, the system gives ticket holders access to priority visa interview appointments at their local embassy. The vast majority of fans will spend at least some time in the U.S., whose 11 Host Cities will stage 78 matches alongside three cities in Mexico (13 matches) and two in Canada (13 matches)

FIFA is also focused on improving the all-round tournament experience as part of the strategic aim to reset the fan and partner experience benchmarks in 2026. Announced at Lenovo Tech World 2026 in Las Vegas, US, in January 2026, Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions will feature at the FIFA World Cup 2026 with Football AI Pro democratising access to data by providing a complete set of football analytics to all competing teams. That information will also be available to broadcasters and fans, who will benefit from AI-stabilised pictures that will enhance Ref Cam footage. It will also underpin greater understanding of match officials’ decisions, as will AI-enabled 3D player avatars that will improve player identification and tracking. It marks a big advance for semi-automated offside technology, providing better images, and faster decisions as well as greater clarity for fans.

The FIFA World Cup 2026 Final will also see a Half-Time Show for the first time with – in September 2024 – advocacy organisation Global Citizen granted rights to produce that event, just as they did at the FIFA Club World Cup 2025 final. The agreement is a facet of a four-year partnership that will mobilise football fans globally to help end extreme poverty and provide millions of children with access to education, in keeping with FIFA’s social responsibility targets (see Goal 6).