FIFA to hold 2026 Congress in Vancouver
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The 2026 FIFA Congress is coming to Vancouver.
World football’s governing body made the announcement Thursday as the congress met in Asuncion, Paraguay. It will be the first time that the group will meet in Canada. Next year’s Congress falls on the eve of the 2026 World Cup, which will be cohosted by Canada, the United States and Mexico. The 2026 edition is the 76th FIFA Congress.
“Vancouver is a great choice, a great city,” CONCACAF president, and Vancouver native, Victor Montagliani told TSN’s Farhan Lalji. “Obviously, it’s my hometown. I think Vancouver – and Canada on a larger scale – will welcome the world, 211 nations.”
The FIFA Congress is more than simply an annual gathering akin to a shareholders’ meeting.
“Every organization has an annual meeting, but this is an annual meeting on steroids, right?” Montagliani, who also serves as the vice-president of the FIFA Council, said. “You have 211 nations, more than the United Nations itself. You have three-plus delegates. You have confederations, like CONCACAF that I’m part of. You have legends of the game coming through the FIFA Legends program, so players like Ronaldinho and [Andrea] Pirlo and stuff. Usually there’s a match that’s organized, as well, so Vancouverites will be able to see some of the greatest players in the world walking the streets here. It’s just four or five days of a football festival. There will be other cultural events
While much of the congress will be devoted to the impending World Cup, there is other significant business set to take place at the gathering. The hosts for both the 2031 and 2035 Women’s World Cups will be determined in Vancouver. Thus far, there is only one bid respectively for each. For 2031, there is a joint United States-Mexico bid. Mexico has never hosted the tournament, while the U.S. has played host twice before in 1999 and 2003. The bid for 2035 is also a joint bid with the “Home Nations” of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland seeking to co-host. The United Kingdom has never played host to a Women’s World Cup before.
But the main event will be the 2026 World Cup set to kick off on June 11 at the Azteca in Mexico City where El Tri will play its first match.
“That’s why it’s a ‘special’ congress, because it’s a World Cup Congress,” Montagliani said. “You’re 30 days away, approximately, from the first game and that just raises the level of excitement. The 48 [competing] teams and 48 countries that will be at the congress as part of the 211, obviously, will be anticipating the World Cup and so will all the fans.”
Though preparations for next summer’s tournament are well underway, Montagliani says that some of the heavy lifting won’t be done until the months before the World Cup kicks off.
“A lot of it will be done in sort of the last 60 or 90 days [out],” Motagliani told Lalji. “For instance, the stadium itself, you can’t put in turf now. But there’s a lot of back-shop stuff having to be done – meetings, as it deals with security and visas and all that kind of stuff, trying to [arrange] transportation. So all that work is being done by our staff, led by Peter Montopoli here at FIFA Canada. The U.S. is doing the same and Mexico is doing the same, so a lot of that work is being done [now], but the bulk of it will be done in the last 90 days in terms of what people will actually see, in terms of the stadium itself and other preparations in the city and all the venues.”
Canada’s opening match is set for Toronto on June 12. After opening at BMO Field, Canada will relocate to Vancouver’s BC Place for the remainder of its group-stage matches.