In June 2018, the architects of the United Bid gathered for the last time in London, which a month earlier was the basis of their campaign to sell the world at the first ever trilateral World Cup. The next morning, they would hand over their mobile phones as a security precaution before boarding a flight to Moscow, where FIFA’s 211 members will be voted on to decide whether to take part in its 2026 tournament.together with Mexico, Canada and the United States.
Eight years earlier, the governing body of footballhad voted to hand over his 2022 showto Qatar – a small desert nation without a single World Cup-ready stadium and summer temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Celsius – over the favored United States. The results stunned American soccer officials and led to years of pain, suspicion and ultimately a federal investigation that helped topple FIFA’s old leadership structure.
In a private room at the River Cafe on the north bank of the Thames, those who had spent years plotting the return of the Americans took part in a ritual that carried the feeling of a fast dinner before a great battle. Over plates of Italian food and wine, they pondered what would be at stake in Moscow – a referendum on America’s place in the world of soccer.
“We didn’t know for sure what the outcome would be,” said Neil Buethe, the chief communications officer at the time for the U.S. Soccer Federation. “We felt strongly that if North America were to host in 2026 we would wear the biggest and best World Cup, but we didn’t know for sure if the rest of the world thought the same.”
Now, eight years after that dinner in London, FIFA has launched the biggest tournament it has ever hosted – a 48-team, three-country tournament that stretches from Guadalajara to Vancouver to the Meadowlands. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to join FIFA President Gianni Infantino in Los Angeles on Fridaywatch the US play its opening matchagainst Paraguay.
The decade-long maneuver to bring the World Cup back to the United States represented a trilateral project just as other relations with Mexico and Canada were deteriorating more than they had in recent memory. The improbable success of the partnership changed the internal politics of FIFA, became a key element of President Donald Trump’s second term and could completely change the way the US government participates in major sporting events.
This insider’s account of the long journey to the 2026 World Cup comes from interviews with organizers and government officials, some of whom were not named to discuss personal matters, as well as internal documents and contemporaneous statements reviewed by POLITICO. This is the story of how the US government broke up FIFA and then helped build the organization into something bigger and more politically powerful than ever before.
