5 California Stadiums Listed As Possible 2026 World Cup Venues

The United Bid Committee of the United States, Mexico and Canada has listed 49 stadiums as possible venues if the World Cup was to come to North America in 2026. 37 of those venues are in the United States while nine are in Canada and three are in Mexico.

It should come as no surprise that California leads the pack with five potential stadiums: Rose Bowl, Coliseum, LA Stadium at Hollywood Park, Qualcomm Stadium, and Levi’s Stadium. Texas and Florida are next with four potential venues in their respective states.

The question is, which stadium’s will become Official Host Cities. The 1994 World Cup was played at nine venues. However, it only featured 24 teams and many of the stadiums help group stage, and knock-out round matches including Giant’s Stadium which hosted a quarterfinal and semifinal match and the Rose Bowl, which featured the other semifinal match, third play play-off the final.

In the official release, it says that “The Bid Committee plans to include 20-25 venues in its final bid to FIFA. If selected to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup™, subject to FIFA’s determination, it is anticipated that at least 12 locations could ultimately serve as Official Host Cities.”

Let that sink in. Just 12 locations.

Fortunately, those living in California are lucky and Levi’s Stadium, Rose Bowl and LA Stadium at Hollywood Park will probably get matches. Qualcomm would be great, but with just 12 cities it makes it a very fierce competition. The states bordering California were also on the list. University of Phoenix Stadium in Arizona and the new Raiders Stadium in Las Vegas were also on the list. But once again. The fact that only the top 12 cities are being selected could take these out of the running.

The next step is that these cities need to declare their interest. The United Bid Committee will review the submissions and they will release a shortlist of cities by late September. The Bid Committee will then provide more detailed bid documentation to the cities and conduct meetings to discuss any questions as candidate cities prepare their final bid, due early January 2018.

The good news is that we will not have to wait long to see which cities will be on the shortlist.