Six scandalous factors that could overshadow the 2026 World Cup

Next summer, the 23rd FIFA World Cup will be held in the USA, Canada and Mexico. This tournament will be the largest in history, as for the first time as many as 48 national teams will play in the world championship, which is 16 more than the previous tournament in Qatar.

But experts and analysts are already identifying a number of scandalous factors that could seriously overshadow the holding of the 2026 World Cup, and we propose to talk about them in more detail now…

extreme temperature

The climate factor is one of the most obvious and discussed issues that the final part of the 2026 World Cup may face. The fact is that in 2025 a kind of “rehearsal” for the World Cup was held on the fields of the United States – the FIFA Club World Cup – which revealed the extent of adverse weather factors that could directly affect the holding of matches. Spectators of the 2025 World Cup especially remember well how the heat and ensuing extreme storms caused individual matches to be delayed by up to two hours, making tournament matches uncomfortable to watch.

Football for the Future and Common Goal predict that 14 out of 16 stadiums in the US, Canada and Mexico will be at climate risk next year based on three main criteria: extreme heat, heavy rain and flooding. And frankly, taking into account the climate factor, it is unlikely that 2026 will be much different from now.

FIFA and organizers have already considered the concept of using cooling stations and large shaded areas for fans, but no less relevant is the recommendation of experts to move at least some matches to the early morning hours to avoid the hottest times of the day and, as a result, possible storms. For now, Gianni Infantino’s organization is still considering this, but any significant time delays, as in the case of the 2025 World Cup, in addition to the postponement of matches, will create a very serious logistical problem for fans and organizers, and it is not yet clear how they can affect the purely sporting factor, especially if some matches have to be played in parallel (as was done, for example, in the last round of the group stage of the competition), to exclude the advantage of anyone.

unpredictable logistics

The vast majority of major sports arenas in North America (let’s leave Mexico out of the equation, but if you take a percentage of the total numbers there won’t be many matches held in that country) have one thing in common: they are huge and located geographically outside or on the outskirts of populated areas and surrounded by incredible amounts of parkland. This is done so that the fans, almost all of whom have their own cars, do not create transportation problems for another part of the population in megacities and at the same time have the opportunity to safely park in the arena and walk to their seats.

However, let’s not forget that many fans from other countries are expected to attend the 2026 World Cup. It is logical that the vast majority of them, including rental ones, remain without a car, so the problem of logistics becomes extremely serious. The staging of the 2025 World Cup has already presented a problem as there is a shortage of buses, leading to unplanned additional costs for some fans.

Frankly, something similar is expected to happen in the 2026 World Cup. Host cities are certainly trying to introduce new direct bus routes and create services available only to World Cup ticket holders, but even so large queues of people are expected to arrive at stadiums via public transport or rental cars.

Ticket prices

The 2026 World Cup will be the first tournament to use a dynamic ticket pricing system. And it is already clear that this world championship will be the most expensive for fans among the previous ones.

Official prices for matches in the group stage of the 2026 World Cup start from $ 60, but many fans have already noted that the percentage of tickets in the lowest price category is too small. Therefore, it is clear that many people should turn to people interested in the resale of “tickets”, who will try to profit as much as possible from the interest in the tournament and the pricing policy of FIFA. Currently, the cheapest ticket available on resale sites for the opening match of the 2026 World Cup will cost the buyer $ 816, which is not that cheap even for Americans, let alone guests from other less economically developed countries.

But we recently talked about this problem in much more detail in a separate material on Sport.ua:

Entry bans

What is true is that, at the moment, the situation seems to be such that the issue of expensive tickets will not be one of the most important problems for all fans who want to attend the 2026 World Cup matches. Although FIFA President Gianni Infantino, speaking to African journalists in August, emphasized that the 2026 World Cup is a tournament for everyone and everyone can participate, some of them will never come to the USA.

The thing is that in June this year, US President Donald Trump imposed a ban on citizens of 12 countries from entering the country. Two of them, Haiti and Iran, were represented with their national teams at the 2026 World Cup. And if exceptions are expected to be made for members of these teams and the technical personnel accompanying them, then there is no need to talk about something similar for ordinary citizens of these states. At least U.S. officials have not yet expressed readiness to make exceptions to the ban, at least through the final portion of the 2026 World Cup on home soil.

“Your ticket is not a visa. It does not guarantee entry to the United States,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized in a recent comment. “This just guarantees you an expedited appointment. You’ll still have to go through the same verification. We’ll do the same checks as anyone else. The only difference here is that we’ll move ticket holders up on a first-come, first-served basis.”

This does not fit well with Infantino’s words that the 2026 World Cup is open to everyone, even if we take into account the fact that the FIFA president always and everywhere praises Donald Trump and his policies, but… These are the realities of our time.

Human rights

“The 2026 World Cup will be the first to include human rights criteria in the bidding process,” Andrea Florence, executive director of the Alliance for Sport and Rights, said recently in Washington. “But the deteriorating human rights record in the United States puts these commitments at risk.”

The rise of attacks on immigrants in the US, President Trump’s rhetoric and his use of the National Guard to harass and detain immigrants across the country raises serious questions about the country’s eligibility to host the tournament and the safety of all players traveling to the 2026 World Cup matches.

FIFA’s decision to remove anti-racism and anti-discrimination messages from the 2025 World Cup, which it is trying to please the current administration in the USA, is also a step back, according to human rights advocates, and suggests – albeit unintentionally – that the problem is no longer as serious as it used to be. But this is unlikely to be the case, and such a thing is unlikely to be acceptable for an organization that claims to represent everyone’s interests equally.

Host cities

FIFA had previously confirmed that Trump would be allowed to change the venue of some World Cup matches if he had concerns about security issues.

Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York/New Jersey, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle are expected to host the 2026 World Cup in the United States, but Donald Trump has previously stated that he may “reschedule” the games if any of the host cities are deemed “unsafe” due to ongoing political tensions in the country.

“Seattle and San Francisco are run by left-wing extremists who don’t know what they are doing. We will ensure that the matches are played in safe conditions. If we think that any city might be even slightly dangerous for the World Cup, we will move the matches to another location. If I decide that a place is dangerous, we will move the matches to another city. We will not allow fights to be held in dangerous conditions. Let’s adjust the dates a little. But hopefully everything goes well and we don’t have to. Postpone the matches.”

It is worth noting here that the cities that Trump threatens to deprive of the right to host matches in the last part of the 2026 World Cup are controlled by Democrats, while the current US President is a Republican, and therefore the upcoming World Cup may turn into one of the platforms for political games, especially against the backdrop of the Senate and House of Representatives elections scheduled to be held in the country on November 3.

Whatever happens, the possibility of matches being moved to another city will become a real logistical nightmare for both organizers and fans.