The announcement has been scheduled for 2pm ET with a joint bid from the Concacaf member nations having long been mooted. The Associated Press news agency said Concacaf made the final decision to go ahead with the bid at its ordinary congress meeting on Saturday in Aruba, a gathering that also saw U.S. Soccer Federation president Sunil Gulati re-elected as a Concacaf representative on the Fifa Council of world football’s governing body.
Fifa president Gianni Infantino has previously said that the world governing body would encourage joint bids for the expanded 2026 World Cup, which will feature 48 teams as opposed to 32. Fifa has traditionally shied away from a co-hosting model for its showpiece event, with the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea the only event to employ such a system.
However, the expanded tournament – which will still run for 32 days – is likely to cause logistical problems for a single host country and Infantino said Fifa would consider a bid comprising “two, three, four countries who can jointly present a project with three, four, five stadiums each”.
The prospect of the 2026 World Cup being hosted in the Americas was boosted in October after Fifa effectively excluded bids from member associations (MAs) of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and European governing body Uefa.
With Russia set to host the 2018 World Cup and Qatar due to hold the 2022 tournament, Fifa said a general principle had been approved that MAs from confederations of the last two hosts of the World Cup, Uefa and the AFC, will be ineligible to host the 2026 event.
While nations in the European (UEFA) and Asian (AFC) football confederations will not be allowed to bid for the 2026 World Cup, North Africa country, Morocco is also set to bid for the biggest football competition.
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