This year’s tournament was framed as a festival of North American unity. Instead, it is testing how much of that unity remains.
The U.S. launched air strikes on Iran for a second consecutive day. And, the World Cup kicks off today in Mexico City, where tensions threaten to disrupt events.
The New York metropolitan area will be abuzz with activities during the length of the World Cup tournament.
This summer’s World Cup will be unlike any other in the 96-year history of the world’s most popular sporting event. Never before have players on the field and spectators in the stands faced the intensity of heat expected to confront them at the matches taking place over the next 39 days, starting with today’s opener between Mexico and South Africa. The extra heat is due, in no small part, to rising global temperatures driven by the burning of fossil fuels, making the 2026 World Cup not just a sports story but a climate one too.Game-time temperatures at many of the host venues in the U.S. and Mexico are projected to be higher than during any previous World Cup, according to new scientific studies. (The 2022 World Cup was hosted by Qatar, but its desert heat was offset by shifting the tournament from summer to winter and holding matches in air conditioned stadiums.) Climate change has increased the number of extremely hot summer days in 14 of the 16 cities hosting matches during the 2026 Cup, the scientific nonprofit Climate Central found. Perhaps most at risk is Miami, which “now experiences roughly two additional weeks of extreme June and July heat compared to the 1970s,” Climate Central’s Ben Tracy reports.In anticipation of the exceptional heat, FIFA, the international governing body of soccer, has taken the extraordinary step of ordering referees to enforce a three-minute break halfway through each half so players can rest and hydrate. Nevertheless, the heat could be so intense, especially in Miami, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Guadalajara, and Mexico City, that players’ performance—how fast they can run, how many minutes they can play—is projected to suffer at 97 of the 104 total matches. “It has such a huge impact on the way you play,” former pro footballer Marisa Abegg told Tracy. That, in turn, has implications for the flow of play and the outcomes of matches: Teams that rely more on speed or endurance, for example, will potentially be disadvantaged.Spectators, too, will suffer. Eleven of the 16 venues are open-air stadiums where spectators will endure the full wrath of the prevailing heat and humidity. Health experts warn of increased risks of heat stroke, dehydration, and kidney failure. In response, some stadiums are adding cooling stations, misting tents, and additional medical staffing.So, a friendly request for our fellow journalists on newsrooms’ sports desks: Acquaint yourselves with the abundant science behind these warnings, via the links in this article. And mention that science occasionally in your reporting and commentary. To ignore climate change would omit crucial context that fans will find useful for understanding why their favorite teams and players excelled or languished during this World Cup.There will be plenty of opportunities to make the climate connection. Commercials will occupy two minutes and 10 seconds of each hydration break, but, for TV and radio commentators, it will be easy enough during the remaining 50 seconds of airtime to note that these breaks are taking place because, thanks largely to global warming, players are enduring some of the highest temperatures in World Cup history.A full account of the climate connection would include not only what climate change is doing to the Cup, but also what the Cup is doing to climate change. A Guardian article described how this year’s tournament is “on track to be the “most polluting” World Cup ever, with total greenhouse gas emissions hitting nearly two times the historical average.” The Guardian notes various “FIFA own goals,” including the association’s decision to increase the number of competing teams from 32 to 48. Most impactful, however, was FIFA’s decision to name three different host nations, rather than the usual one. And since Mexico, the U.S., and Canada are large land masses, teams and spectators traveling to and from venues must travel long distances by air, a notoriously carbon-intensive means of transport. Finally, in what The Guardian calls a sponsorship deal “that looks like it was concocted in a greenwashing laboratory,” FIFA in 2024 “signed a four-year partnership deal with Aramco, the state-owned Saudi energy behemoth that is the largest corporate greenhouse gas emitter on Earth.”In short, there are plenty of climate angles for journalists to explore while covering the 2026 World Cup. The same was true of the Winter Olympics earlier this year, and in 2022, and of the 2024 Summer Olympics. In each case, most coverage was disappointingly silent on the climate connection to these globally beloved sporting events. The next 39 days will reveal whether the 2026 World Cup will be any different.This article is published as part of the global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup tournament is projected to break every conceivable record: It will likely be the most-watched sporting event ever—bringing in an estimated five million visitors to 16 host cities across Canada, Mexico, and the United States, atop a global viewership of six billion throughout the course of competition; more than one billion viewers are projected to watch the final match itself. And the coffers will be full to bursting: The global sport’s governing body is expecting a record $11 billion in revenue. But with hours before the first kickoff, there are problems afoot. FIFA’s ticket inventory remains vastly undersold (due in large part to its exorbitant prices), hotel block bookings have been canceled due to low visitorship, and other superlatives have all but overtaken any event excitement: This World Cup is expected to be the most expensive, the hottest on record, the most emissions-producing, and, potentially, the one that will be remembered for anything other than the game.For months ahead of the tournament, international human rights groups and U.S. civil society organizations alike had been sounding the alarm over the impending human rights nightmare that awaited, largely (if not entirely) perpetrated by the principal host: the United States, where most of the record 104 games will be played, including the final.Far from keeping politics out of play, the Trump administration has wasted no opportunity to use this global stage to debut a new American image, on the eve of the nation’s 250th anniversary, one that is exclusive, exclusionary, and vainglorious. As many had already anticipated, the political tenor of the U.S.-hosted World Cup is set to eclipse the tournament itself.“The prospects of this World Cup being remembered for reasons other than football are very high, and it should be that way,” said Shaista Aziz, co-founder of The Three Hijabis and a member of the U.K.-based Stop Trump Coalition’s “Football Against Fascism” campaign. But that doesn’t seem to be of particular concern to the tournament’s presiding host and FIFA head Gianni Infantino’s close friend, U.S. President Donald Trump, who stole the spotlight at last year’s Club World Cup and quite literally refused to leave the stage. Trump has already playfully rebranded this World Cup as the “MAGA-FIFA World Cup,” with FIFA’s passive consent, and rights advocates and fan groups expect him to host the event accordingly.The official FIFA fan zone in Washington, D.C., for example, will be co-organized by Freedom 250, a project by the Trump administration to celebrate the nation’s semiquincentennial, which is also the organizer for the “America is Back” rally on June 24 at the same location on the National Mall, in which the president will be the headliner.“Trump and the MAGA project are going to stamp themselves all over this tournament to burnish MAGA via soccer,” said Nicholas McGeehan, program director at the rights group FairSquare. “And given the power of the game and the way it’s going to be broadcast around the world, it’ll be effective.”It’s not the first time that the World Cup has been used for soft-power purposes, but seeing it done so flagrantly has rights advocates no less concerned for its consequences, not only in host cities but also abroad.Looming over the proceedings is the fact that the U.S., aided by Israel, is actively at war with Iran. The fact that Iran is competing in the World Cup hosted by its aggressor will not be lost on anyone, but hostilities that take place during the tournament might.“This cannot be used as an attempt to sportswash Donald Trump’s regime, and indeed all of [its] horrific foreign policy interventions (or lack of interventions),” said Aziza, who is particularly concerned that the tournament will be used to veil Israel’s ongoing assault on the occupied West Bank and Lebanon—as mega sporting events have been utilized as cover in the past—with the support of the U.S. “There should be no normalization of [it] in relation to this World Cup.”While Trump has previously stated that “fans from all over the world will be welcome,” few have ever actually believed that the first ever World Cup in which the host nation is at war with a qualified nation will be as hospitable as advertised. Currently, Iran’s national team has only been issued visas under express warning by U.S. officials that they do not “abuse this system to sneak terrorists into the United States under false pretenses,” while key staff have been denied entry. The team must also leave U.S. soil on the same day as their matches.
The Fifa president’s monologue before the 2022 World Cup attained legendary status for all the wrong reasons. He was in familiar form four years onGianni Infantino’s speech on the eve of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar is the stuff of legend. You know the one – the rambling, hour-long monologue where he told us all how he felt. He felt gay that day. He also felt disabled, Qatari, Arab, African and like a migrant worker. In doing so, the Fifa president engraved himself permanently into meme culture, and his remarks remain a popular source of online amusement to this day.On Wednesday, amid a gaggle of reporters and photographers, Infantino once again took to the stage. He sat in a tent in the shadow of the Estadio Azteca – it has been renamed Estadio Ciudad de México for the World Cup – a place many see as the western hemisphere’s cathedral of football. On Thursday, Mexico will host South Africa in the opening match of the 2026 World Cup. Continue reading...
⚽️ Infantino tells fans to ‘chill’ in response to Fifa’s critics⚽️ Match centre | Player guide | Bracketology | Mail JohnBTL chat is thus far dominated by Gianni Infantino’s ritual pre-tournament torching of his own dignity. SonOfThe Desert offers this:“Infantino is just absolutely wretched, isn’t he? An absolute nothing of a man, sucking up to tyrants because he thinks it makes him look strong. ”But you know what’s really annoying me? All those heads of national associations who could have unified around a candidate - anyone - to oppose Infantino and try and rescue Fifa from humiliation. Couldn’t be bothered though, could they? Might’ve had to do some actual work that way.New York has honored two footballing greats by temporarily renaming streets after Thierry Henry and Pelé ahead of the World Cup kickoff …Crowds gathered at West 50th Street and 6th Avenue in downtown Manhattan to mark the unveiling of “Thierry Henry Way” by city officials, according to FOX Sports. Continue reading...
The 2026 World Cup is being played in New Jersey, but in Queens, New York, home to immigrants from all over the world, soccer is not just a sport. It's a way of life.
With a record 48 teams and 1,248 players, there's an endless number of stats about the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Here are a few to get you started.