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For the first time, the next World Cup will include 48 teams, up from 32, and will be co-hosted by three countries.
Nations have been handed relief at the expanded 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada, and Mexico as FIFA president Gianni Infantino has announced that teams will be based in regional clusters during the early rounds to ease travel.
Speaking in Los Angeles during the unveiling of the official logo and branding for the tournament, Infantino said the move was prompted by the scale of the 2026 finals.
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For the first time, the next World Cup will include 48 teams, up from 32, and will be co-hosted by three countries.
"The challenges will be the whole logistics around it. It's a continent, three countries, and not three small countries either, three big countries.
"So, for us, it's important to create the right environment for the teams and the fans to be put in the best possible conditions. We will create some clusters where teams will be based depending on the draw and then they will play their games in that particular cluster,” Infantino said, as quoted by AFP.
Infantino said travel, and the move towards basing teams in regions, had been discussed at a meeting in Doha during the World Cup.
"This was one of the advantages of the World Cup in Qatar, where a player, one hour after the game, was in his bed," he added.
Meanwhile, Infantino hopes the tournament can build on the success of the 1994 finals in the United States, which helped establish Major League Soccer in North America.
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He added that he hopes the legacy of the 2026 World Cup will be the ‘number one sport in North America.’
Infantino's remarks came as FIFA rolled out a "green carpet" for celebrities and former players at the Griffith Observatory overlooking Los Angeles.
Among the guests was former US international Alexi Lalas, one of the stars of 1994. Lalas backed Infantino's pledge to base teams in regions.
"At the risk of 'grumpy old-manning it', it's not like these guys are sitting in the middle seat in economy on a budget airline or anything. They're on charter aircraft all over the place. But having said that, we're obviously talking about six-hour trips, time-zone changes.,” Lalas told AFP.
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