San Francisco Bay Area Chosen As Host City For 2026 FIFA World Cup Matches
Sixteen North American cities were chosen to host 80 matches for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
FIFA has unveiled sixteen North American host cities for the highly-anticipated 2026 World Cup, one of which is the SF Bay Area. Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara won a bid to host the matches.
The 48-team tournament will take place across cities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. It’s the second time that multiple countries have been selected to host the Cup at one time, the last being Japan and South Korea in 2002.
The San Francisco Bay Area has been selected as one of eleven U.S. host cities, largely because of the Bay Area’s legacy of highly-decorated home teams, from the Giants to the 49ers to the Warriors.
FIFA cites “international matches during the 1984 Olympics, 1994 FIFA World Cup USA™ and FIFA Women’s World Cup USA 1999™” as additional significant moments in Bay Area sports history.
Santa Clara recently won a bid to host the FIFA World Cup at Levi’s Stadium. Stanford Stadium and Spartan Stadium (now CEFCU Stadium) in San Jose have been used in past FIFA events.
The eleven U.S. host cities are San Francisco, Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York-New Jersey area, Philadelphia, and Seattle.
Monterrey, Mexico City, and Guadalajara will serve as host cities in Mexico; and Vancouver and Toronto will be the host cities in Canada.
Sixty matches including the quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals will take place in the U.S. cities, while ten each will happen in Mexico and Canada.
Stay tuned as we await more updates about FIFA’s plans for the World Cup in the Bay Area!
Featured image: Photo by Fauzan Saari on Unsplash