FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United States: Discussion Thread

[Slow death]

How magnificent the next World Cup will be will depend entirely on the FIFA authorities. However, the host countries will have great responsibilities. But I think countries may not be able to organize like Qatar. Because Qatar spent a lot of money on the World Cup.

the united states of america and canada are two very rich countries and they also like soccer, they have luxury hotels, they have several good places for tourists to visit, and they have a very large contingent of police capable of guaranteeing the good security of all the people who participate in the world cup, maybe one of the small problems could come from the neighbor of the united states of america, i'm talking about mexico which is a country very tormented by drug traffickers, but even in the usa there are a lot of drugs in circulation, so I think that mexico could not be seen badly in relation to this part because they are not the only ones that have a lot of drugs circulating in the cities and in the smaller neighborhoods and if we look from the other side about the national teams of these countries

we will see that the usa and mexico have much better national teams than qatar, so in my opinion the organization of the world cup in usa + canada + mexico will be a much better cup than the one that was organized in qatar, in qatar people were restricted , they couldn't do much, but in the US, which is a country where people just walk around naked, people will be much freer, many singers will want to sing at the world cup organized in usa + mexico + canada, many famous players who they are playing in the usa of the world cup that will be organized in the usa, without a doubt it will be much better than the one in qatar

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[freedomgo]

I believe it has been a tradition since the initial world cup to have the host qualify automatically.

I mean, can you imagine hosting an event in which you're not even participating?, doesn't seem too fair to be honest. The hosts need to put a lot of money and effort to make it happen, at a minimum they should qualify.

Your logic works when one or two countries are hosting the world cup. But it doesn't work when a large group of countries are co-hosting this tournament. And in 2030 it is going to be even worse. There is a combined bid from Uruguay–Argentina–Chile–Paraguay. If they succeed, then there will be 4 co-hosts and each one will qualify for the tournament automatically. And for all the other teams from CONMEBOL (including Brazil), only 2 spots will be made available for the 2030 World Cup. Do you really believe that this is fair?

I think there are a lot of considerations that had to be made that are not that obvious for us as outsiders to the topics of security, infrastructure, financial abilities and so on and so forth. I don't think that there hasn't been put a lot of thought into this decision. But I do get your point that this auto-qualification is a problem for some people, not for me though.

See, do you think that the host always has an advantage over all other participants? The biggest disadvantage is that the hosts don't have a lot of serious games with their national teams before the tournament actually starts. The qualification is still a good opportunity to find the right team for the right time. I am ok with the three nations already being qualified.

The bad thing about the 2026 world cup and even previous world cups is getting auto qualification when they host the world cup. I mean when they host the world cup they get some advantages, for example, they will have more visitors for their country and it helps the country financially while getting an auto qualification is not necessary and they should get qualified like other teams.

Actually, I looked it up to know what is the reason behind why does FIFA is giving the host(s) an advantage of having their team to be automatically qualify and honestly, I'm quite surprised to know the reason because FIFA said that it's just a courtesy, simple as that.

Quite unfair, isn't it? But we can't do nothing about it as it turns out that it is already a tradition where the hosts will have that specific advantage apart from having a financial boost to their economy due to the people that will be flocking towards the host's country.

[sana54210]

If my country is hosting the World Cup and it failed to qualify for the competition, I will never go to the stadium to watch any game. The majority of people that go to watch these games are from the host country. Apart from the supporters club of most countries, the stadium will be empty without the citizens of the host country. For the competition to be entertaining and profitable, host nations should be given automatic qualification tickets. Don't also forget that these host nations will also spend millions of dollars on football facilities, infrastructures, personnel, and other essential services. We shouldn't assume that it is FIFA that finances all the projects, so they need to be compensated with automatic qualification.

This is why the hosts join the games. But it is not the main reason, I mean remember Qatar? They lost every game and was gone, did people not watch the other games? Of course not, there were a lot of people from Qatar that watched other games as well, some people will not watch them of course, but many will want to be there and watch it. Imagine world cup finals and you have a ticket, how could you not go? I mean doesn't matter which team you support, you gotta watch that .

This is the reason why it's both important to have the hosts involved at first, but doesn't mean that they have to win or go somewhere, it would need to be just in there, after that they can lose all their games and it would still have a lot of people who join and watch the games in stadiums anyway.

[Leviathan.007]

The bad thing about the 2026 world cup and even previous world cups is getting auto qualification when they host the world cup. I mean when they host the world cup they get some advantages, for example, they will have more visitors for their country and it helps the country financially while getting an auto qualification is not necessary and they should get qualified like other teams.

If my country is hosting the World Cup and it failed to qualify for the competition, I will never go to the stadium to watch any game. The majority of people that go to watch these games are from the host country. Apart from the supporters club of most countries, the stadium will be empty without the citizens of the host country. For the competition to be entertaining and profitable, host nations should be given automatic qualification tickets. Don't also forget that these host nations will also spend millions of dollars on football facilities, infrastructures, personnel, and other essential services. We shouldn't assume that it is FIFA that finances all the projects, so they need to be compensated with automatic qualification.

That's not right, whenever we are watching the world cup games we just watch the games because we feel we like the games not because our country is playing in the world cup other wise in the final match of any world cup we had only people in two countries watching the games and others will ignore the game just because their country is not playing there which is not right.

[Sithara007]

That's not right, whenever we are watching the world cup games we just watch the games because we feel we like the games not because our country is playing in the world cup other wise in the final match of any world cup we had only people in two countries watching the games and others will ignore the game just because their country is not playing there which is not right.

All of you need to remember one thing. World Cup matches are never played in empty stadiums. The demand for tickets are 10 times or 20 times the actual supply. During the 2022 World Cup, Qataris reserved a large fraction of tickets to themselves and made massive profits by selling these tickets to fans at exorbitant prices. So the argument that fans from the host nation may not watch the tournament in case their team is not there doesn't stand. If they don't watch, then fans from other countries will be ready to purchase the tickets. IMO, host nations should not be provided with automatic qualification. They need to qualify through the qualifier tournaments, just like the other teams.

[TopTort777]

The bad thing about the 2026 world cup and even previous world cups is getting auto qualification when they host the world cup. I mean when they host the world cup they get some advantages, for example, they will have more visitors for their country and it helps the country financially while getting an auto qualification is not necessary and they should get qualified like other teams.

If my country is hosting the World Cup and it failed to qualify for the competition, I will never go to the stadium to watch any game. The majority of people that go to watch these games are from the host country. Apart from the supporters club of most countries, the stadium will be empty without the citizens of the host country. For the competition to be entertaining and profitable, host nations should be given automatic qualification tickets. Don't also forget that these host nations will also spend millions of dollars on football facilities, infrastructures, personnel, and other essential services. We shouldn't assume that it is FIFA that finances all the projects, so they need to be compensated with automatic qualification.

I think that even if your country dont fail to quality, you would still dont go to stadium. Because you are not a football fan. For example, I am not a huge football fan, probably I dont like football at all, but if I was in Qatar and had a chance to buy a ticket, I would visit any match. Or you think that if two team play, then the stadium is filled only by two nations? Take recent Qatar cup, think there were many locals on the stadium? I think a lot of Qatar werent able to afford to buy tickets.

[Strongkored]

That's not right, whenever we are watching the world cup games we just watch the games because we feel we like the games not because our country is playing in the world cup other wise in the final match of any world cup we had only people in two countries watching the games and others will ignore the game just because their country is not playing there which is not right.

All of you need to remember one thing. World Cup matches are never played in empty stadiums. The demand for tickets are 10 times or 20 times the actual supply. During the 2022 World Cup, Qataris reserved a large fraction of tickets to themselves and made massive profits by selling these tickets to fans at exorbitant prices. So the argument that fans from the host nation may not watch the tournament in case their team is not there doesn't stand. If they don't watch, then fans from other countries will be ready to purchase the tickets. IMO, host nations should not be provided with automatic qualification. They need to qualify through the qualifier tournaments, just like the other teams.

Because this is a big tournament, there is never a doubt that there will be not fewer fans and that is also one of the reasons for FIFA to increase the number of participants because it means more money will be circulating throughout the World Cup. Conditions like any of the hosts will not reduce the interest of spectators to come directly to the stadium and watch the match even though there is a possibility that the match will be boring.
If regulations appear, the host country will not automatically become a participant because they still pass the qualifications. There may be less interest from the country that organizes it, because apart from economic reasons, one of the reasons why countries are interested in becoming an organizer is because they get the privilege of their national team automatically playing, and the rules of the organizing country automatically playing out like a lucrative deal for FIFA and that country.

[Sithara007]

Because this is a big tournament, there is never a doubt that there will be not fewer fans and that is also one of the reasons for FIFA to increase the number of participants because it means more money will be circulating throughout the World Cup. Conditions like any of the hosts will not reduce the interest of spectators to come directly to the stadium and watch the match even though there is a possibility that the match will be boring.

I don't think that only money making was in FIFA's mind when they decided to increase the number of participants from 32 to 48. The real reason was to ensure adequate representation from all the confederations. Right now, only 9.5 slots are allotted to AFC and CAF, where almost two-third of the world's population reside. This allocation was justified back in 1990s, when the quality of Asian and African teams were not up to the mark. But now these teams are playing at a level equal to that of the UEFA teams and there is simply no justification to allot 13 slots to UEFA and 4 to AFC.

[TopTort777]

Because this is a big tournament, there is never a doubt that there will be not fewer fans and that is also one of the reasons for FIFA to increase the number of participants because it means more money will be circulating throughout the World Cup. Conditions like any of the hosts will not reduce the interest of spectators to come directly to the stadium and watch the match even though there is a possibility that the match will be boring.

I don't think that only money making was in FIFA's mind when they decided to increase the number of participants from 32 to 48. The real reason was to ensure adequate representation from all the confederations. Right now, only 9.5 slots are allotted to AFC and CAF, where almost two-third of the world's population reside. This allocation was justified back in 1990s, when the quality of Asian and African teams were not up to the mark. But now these teams are playing at a level equal to that of the UEFA teams and there is simply no justification to allot 13 slots to UEFA and 4 to AFC.

That is actually a smart thing to do. I wonder why ice hockey tournaments always have only 16 teams, that are formed by having 12 teams that got most points from previous tournaments, and 4 additional team from lower division. I wonder why dont ice hockey tournaments dont increase number of teams to 32 and have selected a method of "4 worst to best teams rotation". I can suppose that this is due to a general level of tournament, that not many teams can compete on same level with top8, even among 16 teams there are those who lose games with 4-6 score difference. Why dont football tournaments have such rotations instead of adding more countries?

[mm2543363580]

The bad thing about the 2026 world cup and even previous world cups is getting auto qualification when they host the world cup. I mean when they host the world cup they get some advantages, for example, they will have more visitors for their country and it helps the country financially while getting an auto qualification is not necessary and they should get qualified like other teams.

If my country is hosting the World Cup and it failed to qualify for the competition, I will never go to the stadium to watch any game. The majority of people that go to watch these games are from the host country. Apart from the supporters club of most countries, the stadium will be empty without the citizens of the host country. For the competition to be entertaining and profitable, host nations should be given automatic qualification tickets. Don't also forget that these host nations will also spend millions of dollars on football facilities, infrastructures, personnel, and other essential services. We shouldn't assume that it is FIFA that finances all the projects, so they need to be compensated with automatic qualification.

I think that even if your country dont fail to quality, you would still dont go to stadium. Because you are not a football fan. For example, I am not a huge football fan, probably I dont like football at all, but if I was in Qatar and had a chance to buy a ticket, I would visit any match. Or you think that if two team play, then the stadium is filled only by two nations? Take recent Qatar cup, think there were many locals on the stadium? I think a lot of Qatar werent able to afford to buy tickets.

Obviously those who are true football fans will watch all matches no matter what , their teams qualifies or not . But they still want their team to be there in ground,  the increase number if games is a good step for all the football fans whose countries weren't there  in previous fifa .

[Leviathan.007]

That's not right, whenever we are watching the world cup games we just watch the games because we feel we like the games not because our country is playing in the world cup other wise in the final match of any world cup we had only people in two countries watching the games and others will ignore the game just because their country is not playing there which is not right.

All of you need to remember one thing. World Cup matches are never played in empty stadiums. The demand for tickets are 10 times or 20 times the actual supply. During the 2022 World Cup, Qataris reserved a large fraction of tickets to themselves and made massive profits by selling these tickets to fans at exorbitant prices. So the argument that fans from the host nation may not watch the tournament in case their team is not there doesn't stand. If they don't watch, then fans from other countries will be ready to purchase the tickets. IMO, host nations should not be provided with automatic qualification. They need to qualify through the qualifier tournaments, just like the other teams.

That's the whole point, World Cup is the most important tournament and people will go to the stadiums and buy tickets even if their country if not even qualified for the world cup which can have positive financial effects for the countries hosting the world cup while when they get auto qualification for the world cup they will even have to get more benefits comparing to other teams which can't be fair.

[Japinat]

The bad thing about the 2026 world cup and even previous world cups is getting auto qualification when they host the world cup. I mean when they host the world cup they get some advantages, for example, they will have more visitors for their country and it helps the country financially while getting an auto qualification is not necessary and they should get qualified like other teams.

If my country is hosting the World Cup and it failed to qualify for the competition, I will never go to the stadium to watch any game. The majority of people that go to watch these games are from the host country. Apart from the supporters club of most countries, the stadium will be empty without the citizens of the host country. For the competition to be entertaining and profitable, host nations should be given automatic qualification tickets. Don't also forget that these host nations will also spend millions of dollars on football facilities, infrastructures, personnel, and other essential services. We shouldn't assume that it is FIFA that finances all the projects, so they need to be compensated with automatic qualification.

That's not right, whenever we are watching the world cup games we just watch the games because we feel we like the games not because our country is playing in the world cup other wise in the final match of any world cup we had only people in two countries watching the games and others will ignore the game just because their country is not playing there which is not right.

We can't really force them if they don't want to watch the remaining games anymore as some avid fans of their own national team will automatically lose interest if their team failed to qualify. I mean, to some, that is their only reason why they are watching the said World Cup and not because they also wanted to see other teams who are also playing in the same event.
But for some avid football fans, any team who will qualify will not matter to them because it's the sport whom they wanted to see and just some selected teams playing against other national teams.

[Silberman]

...
host nations should not be provided with automatic qualification. They need to qualify through the qualifier tournaments, just like the other teams.

While this would be the fairest option this is never going to happen, if I am not misremembering there was a time in which the world cup champion was also given an automatic qualification to the next world cup so they could defend their championship and later this rule was abolished, and in theory it would make sense for the host nation to also be forced to qualify on their own, but this is about money, and if this rule was abolished all host nations on their bid to win the rights to host the world cup will ask for automatic qualification anyway.

[Kelvinid]

...
host nations should not be provided with automatic qualification. They need to qualify through the qualifier tournaments, just like the other teams.

While this would be the fairest option this is never going to happen, if I am not misremembering there was a time in which the world cup champion was also given an automatic qualification to the next world cup so they could defend their championship and later this rule was abolished, and in theory it would make sense for the host nation to also be forced to qualify on their own, but this is about money, and if this rule was abolished all host nations on their bid to win the rights to host the world cup will ask for automatic qualification anyway.

It's a good thing that particular rule was abolished much earlier because if that happened now, especially in the next World Cup, it will be too unfair to the other participants because three national teams will be given the advantage to automatically qualify up until the FIFA World Cup 2023. Anyway, by now, we should be already accustomed by it as that rule was already a tradition these days that the host countries will have that kind of advantage. Even the other teams that are participating the said event already accepted the fact.

[Hispo]

...
host nations should not be provided with automatic qualification. They need to qualify through the qualifier tournaments, just like the other teams.

While this would be the fairest option this is never going to happen, if I am not misremembering there was a time in which the world cup champion was also given an automatic qualification to the next world cup so they could defend their championship and later this rule was abolished, and in theory it would make sense for the host nation to also be forced to qualify on their own, but this is about money, and if this rule was abolished all host nations on their bid to win the rights to host the world cup will ask for automatic qualification anyway.

Yes, it is about money. In most of the cases there are so many big investments which are supposed to be made to accommodate the world cup in a nation. Stadiums, security, logistics, hotels, advertisement, etc. The many components that can lead a country to accept to take care of all those things is to watch in live their local selection to contest for the title of the world championship, otherwise it would be more difficult for politicians to spend that money if the national team is not even going to be present.

I mean, in many cases we are talking about countries that suffer from serious social problems and some people may find distasteful to expend some much in an event like this one, it would be perceived even in a worse manner if their selection was not even there to play.

[Leviathan.007]

...
host nations should not be provided with automatic qualification. They need to qualify through the qualifier tournaments, just like the other teams.

While this would be the fairest option this is never going to happen, if I am not misremembering there was a time in which the world cup champion was also given an automatic qualification to the next world cup so they could defend their championship and later this rule was abolished, and in theory it would make sense for the host nation to also be forced to qualify on their own, but this is about money, and if this rule was abolished all host nations on their bid to win the rights to host the world cup will ask for automatic qualification anyway.

Some rules in the world cup are not fair at all and they need to change these rules on the rules they need to change is about getting auto qualification when they host the tournament and it's not just about the world cup but I'm talking about all the tournaments if a country wants to play in the world cup they need to fight for just like other nations and being the host of world cup shouldn't be the reason for any country to get an auto qualification.

[keyscore44]

...
host nations should not be provided with automatic qualification. They need to qualify through the qualifier tournaments, just like the other teams.

While this would be the fairest option this is never going to happen, if I am not misremembering there was a time in which the world cup champion was also given an automatic qualification to the next world cup so they could defend their championship and later this rule was abolished, and in theory it would make sense for the host nation to also be forced to qualify on their own, but this is about money, and if this rule was abolished all host nations on their bid to win the rights to host the world cup will ask for automatic qualification anyway.

Some rules in the world cup are not fair at all and they need to change these rules on the rules they need to change is about getting auto qualification when they host the tournament and it's not just about the world cup but I'm talking about all the tournaments if a country wants to play in the world cup they need to fight for just like other nations and being the host of world cup shouldn't be the reason for any country to get an auto qualification.

To organize a tournament as big as the FIFA World Cup, a lot of work has to be done, as well as a lot of hard work, because of which the countries can issue some new rules and regulations so that the countries will end the tournament successfully. Therefore, we as spectators should follow the laws of the countries where the World Cup will be held.

[beerlover]

All of you need to remember one thing. World Cup matches are never played in empty stadiums. The demand for tickets are 10 times or 20 times the actual supply. During the 2022 World Cup, Qataris reserved a large fraction of tickets to themselves and made massive profits by selling these tickets to fans at exorbitant prices. So the argument that fans from the host nation may not watch the tournament in case their team is not there doesn't stand. If they don't watch, then fans from other countries will be ready to purchase the tickets. IMO, host nations should not be provided with automatic qualification. They need to qualify through the qualifier tournaments, just like the other teams.

Because this is a big tournament, there is never a doubt that there will be not fewer fans and that is also one of the reasons for FIFA to increase the number of participants because it means more money will be circulating throughout the World Cup. Conditions like any of the hosts will not reduce the interest of spectators to come directly to the stadium and watch the match even though there is a possibility that the match will be boring.
If regulations appear, the host country will not automatically become a participant because they still pass the qualifications. There may be less interest from the country that organizes it, because apart from economic reasons, one of the reasons why countries are interested in becoming an organizer is because they get the privilege of their national team automatically playing, and the rules of the organizing country automatically playing out like a lucrative deal for FIFA and that country.

The amount of money that is earned by everyone via World Cup is crazy. The hosts make money, Fifa makes a lot of money, the hotels around it makes money, the events around it make money, the shops around it makes money, players make more money due to endorsements as well, hell even clubs make more money because their players worth more if they play well, and even go as far as say that national teams that are not the host make money by selling their jersey as well, that merch income is not something small.

So, overall if we look at every single cent earned thanks to world cup, it is a 11 maybe 12 digit amount, I bet 30-40 billion at least when you calculate it all, and that's not easy to do that is a huge amount of money we are talking about, unheard of in anything else in the world.

[Daniel91]

How magnificent the next World Cup will be will depend entirely on the FIFA authorities. However, the host countries will have great responsibilities. But I think countries may not be able to organize like Qatar. Because Qatar spent a lot of money on the World Cup.

the united states of america and canada are two very rich countries and they also like soccer, they have luxury hotels, they have several good places for tourists to visit, and they have a very large contingent of police capable of guaranteeing the good security of all the people who participate in the world cup, maybe one of the small problems could come from the neighbor of the united states of america, i'm talking about mexico which is a country very tormented by drug traffickers, but even in the usa there are a lot of drugs in circulation, so I think that mexico could not be seen badly in relation to this part because they are not the only ones that have a lot of drugs circulating in the cities and in the smaller neighborhoods and if we look from the other side about the national teams of these countries

we will see that the usa and mexico have much better national teams than qatar, so in my opinion the organization of the world cup in usa + canada + mexico will be a much better cup than the one that was organized in qatar, in qatar people were restricted , they couldn't do much, but in the US, which is a country where people just walk around naked, people will be much freer, many singers will want to sing at the world cup organized in usa + mexico + canada, many famous players who they are playing in the usa of the world cup that will be organized in the usa, without a doubt it will be much better than the one in qatar

I would not really agree that America loves soccer that much. In fact, Americans much prefer their American football, which is a sport similar to European rugby. Basketball, hockey and baseball are also more popular than European football.
On that side, I am glad that the world cup will also be played in Mexico, because there will be a football holiday and a real football atmosphere.
Regarding security, I remember everyone was worried about security and crime and when the world cup was held in 2010 in South Africa but there were no problems or incidents
However, America and Canada are very expensive for tourists and many fans will find it difficult to come to America and support their team.

[Leviathan.007]

All of you need to remember one thing. World Cup matches are never played in empty stadiums. The demand for tickets are 10 times or 20 times the actual supply. During the 2022 World Cup, Qataris reserved a large fraction of tickets to themselves and made massive profits by selling these tickets to fans at exorbitant prices. So the argument that fans from the host nation may not watch the tournament in case their team is not there doesn't stand. If they don't watch, then fans from other countries will be ready to purchase the tickets. IMO, host nations should not be provided with automatic qualification. They need to qualify through the qualifier tournaments, just like the other teams.

Because this is a big tournament, there is never a doubt that there will be not fewer fans and that is also one of the reasons for FIFA to increase the number of participants because it means more money will be circulating throughout the World Cup. Conditions like any of the hosts will not reduce the interest of spectators to come directly to the stadium and watch the match even though there is a possibility that the match will be boring.
If regulations appear, the host country will not automatically become a participant because they still pass the qualifications. There may be less interest from the country that organizes it, because apart from economic reasons, one of the reasons why countries are interested in becoming an organizer is because they get the privilege of their national team automatically playing, and the rules of the organizing country automatically playing out like a lucrative deal for FIFA and that country.

The amount of money that is earned by everyone via World Cup is crazy. The hosts make money, Fifa makes a lot of money, the hotels around it makes money, the events around it make money, the shops around it makes money, players make more money due to endorsements as well, hell even clubs make more money because their players worth more if they play well, and even go as far as say that national teams that are not the host make money by selling their jersey as well, that merch income is not something small.

So, overall if we look at every single cent earned thanks to world cup, it is a 11 maybe 12 digit amount, I bet 30-40 billion at least when you calculate it all, and that's not easy to do that is a huge amount of money we are talking about, unheard of in anything else in the world.

In fact, the country hosting the world cup will earn more money than others because the hotels and markets in that country will get more demand they can get more tax during this time also regardless of the money they can earn during this time they can have the chance to introduce their country to the world which can have more benefits for them.