While the Montreal Impact was unveiling all the details of significant improvements made to Stade Saputo, this Monday afternoon, the national soccer associations of Canada, the United States and Mexico declared their intention to submit a unified bid to host the FIFA World Cup in 2026.
Having already hosted the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2015, Canada is now looking to host games for the premier men’s international soccer tournament for the first time ever. Nine games of the 2015 Women’s World Cup were played in Montreal, including a USA-Germany semifinal encounter.
“This is good news for North American soccer – all the more so if the bid is successful – for both the game itself and for its notoriety and popularity,” said Impact executive vice-president Richard Legendre during a press conference. “It would be difficult to host games at Stade Saputo, given that World Cup stadiums need a larger capacity. With the space that we have at our disposal, we couldn’t expand the stadium in such a way that we could welcome 45,000 or 50,000 people here. We’ll see what happens for the city of Montreal, but for now, we can’t really comment any further.”
With the Men’s World Cup format set to change in 2026, some 80 games would be split between the three nations, with the United States hosting most of them, as the association presidents suggested on Monday.
Click here to read the Canada Soccer Association press release.
