This year’s tournament aims to bring nations together in a period of global instability. That’s nothing new
The 2026 World Cup will be hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico—the first time that three countries have jointly hosted the tournament. Photo: Shutterstock
The FIFA World Cup, which begins on June 11, could be a showcase for coexistence in a time of global fragility. Despite challenging trade and diplomatic relations between them, Canada, Mexico, and the United States will jointly host the tournament over a period of 39 days.
It will be only the second time in its history that the World Cup has been shared between joint hosts. South Korea and Japan did so in 2002.
This year, the tournament occurs in a time of economic uncertainty and profound questions as to the future of international peace and security.
To be sure, awkward political and diplomatic subtexts have never been far from the World Cup.
Uruguay hosted the first edition in 1930 at the onset of the Great Depression. Underscoring an anti-colonial subtext, Montevideo’s Estadio Centenario, venue of the final match, was built to commemorate 100 years of Uruguay’s independence from Spain in 1830. Spain kept away.
Thirteen countries participated in that inaugural competition. The hosts subsidized the costs of travel and accommodation, which ultimately enabled four European countries to participate: Belgium, France, Romania, and Yugoslavia.
Italy’s ruler, Benito Mussolini, hosted the tournament in 1934 and turned it into a prop for fascist iconography. Political machinations on and off field enabled Italy’s emergence as eventual winners.
Similarly, the 1978 World Cup in Argentina was a propaganda victory for the host country’s military dictatorship. The regime’s largest torture center, located at the Navy Mechanical School in capital city Buenos Aires, was within earshot of Estadio Monumental, venue of the final match, which Argentina won for the first time.
Awkward political and diplomatic subtexts have never been far from the World Cup.
Over the years, the subtext of international relations around the World Cup has remained durable. Decolonization has contributed very much to the evolution of the competition, expanding participation from 13 countries at inception to the 48 who will compete this summer.
This year, despite ongoing conflict and an uncertain ceasefire between Iran and the U.S., FIFA has confirmed that Iran will compete in the tournament and will play all of its three group stage matches in venues inside the U.S.
Iran is one of 48 countries that will compete in the tournament over 104 matches scheduled across 16 venues in the three host countries.
The opening match between Mexico and South Africa on June 11 will be one of five matches to be played at the Azteca Stadium, venue of the final match in the 1986 edition. Guadalajara and Monterrey, also in Mexico, will respectively host four matches each.
Thirteen matches will be played in Canada, seven in Vancouver and six in Toronto.
The MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, will host the final game. It is one of 11 venues for the 78 games to be played in the U.S. Other U.S. venues include Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, San Francisco Bay Area, and Seattle.
Located a mere 22 miles southwest of downtown Boston and 18 miles northeast of Providence, Rhode Island, the Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, will host seven matches, including a quarter-final on July 9.
The countries scheduled to compete in the group matches at Gillette Stadium—or Boston Stadium, as it will be known during the tournament—include England, France, Ghana, Haiti, Iraq, Morocco, Norway, and Scotland. Despite widespread concerns about the effects of current U.S. immigration policies, many of these countries share rich histories with the New England area which could make for intriguing contests and guarantee enthusiastic fan interest.
The first match at Gillette will be on June 13 between Haiti and Scotland. For Haiti, the site of the first successful slave revolt in the world and a country affected by current U.S. immigration restrictions, there is evocative irony to the fact that it will play its first-ever World Cup match in the Boston area, once a hub in the transatlantic slave trade.
Similarly, Scotland and Boston share a storied history dating back to the earliest Scottish prisoners of war who were banished to the Boston Bay colony during the rule of Oliver Cromwell and Charles II in the mid-17th century. The Scots Charitable Society founded in 1657 in Massachusetts to help those in need after they completed their forced indentured servitude is reputed to be the oldest charitable organization in the western hemisphere.
The contest between England’s Three Lions and former colonial subjects, Ghana’s Black Stars, on June 23 could inspire the absorbing passions of a post-colonial derby. The coincidence will not be lost on many that English puritans escaping religious persecution back home settled in Boston in the first three decades of the 17th century, building a settlement whose trajectory would become steeped in both revolutionary tension and civic innovation.
This absorbing interplay of history, memory, identity, skill, and athletic ability is why the FIFA World Cup continues to evoke passion on a scale unknown to any other single sporting event. Whether it will leave any lasting legacies on the major questions facing our world today will be debated long after a winner is settled on July 19.
