World Cup 2026: Host city reveal lays bare sprawling, money-spinning affair

The crowd went crazy, a yelling, jumping, flag-waving, fist-pumping swirl of red-white-and-blue delight. And why not? Kansas City had just won the 2026 World Cup.

The host city selection process for the tournament in the US, Mexico and Canada unfurled much like a World Cup itself: a few no-hopers, some underdogs who went deeper than expected, a couple of surprising flops and predictable triumphs for the favorites.

Fans at the KC Live! watch party for Thursday’s announcement of the winners celebrated what had until recently seemed an improbable victory. When Fifa evaluated the Kansas City bid in 2018 it scored some of the lowest marks for accommodation and transport among the contenders.

But the airport’s being rebuilt, there’s a vibrant soccer culture, the Hunt family is among the most influential dynasties in US sports, and Missouri passed a bill exempting World Cup tickets from sales taxes - unlike Colorado.

In any case, it would have been remiss not to pick any midwestern cities, though the venue map still looks strange. There was a glaring omission even before the united North American bid defeated Morocco in 2018, since the then-mayor of Chicago – the sports-crazed third-largest city in the US and the base of the US Soccer Federation – took a peek at the potential financial liabilities and balked. As did Montreal, which quit the race last summer when the Quebec government declined to contribute a reported $75m.

Edmonton was spurned by Fifa, meaning that Canada only has two cities to Mexico’s three and the US’s 11. And KC beat DC. “You can’t imagine a World Cup coming to the US and the capital city not taking a major role as well,” Colin Smith, Fifa’s chief tournaments and events officer, told reporters on