After Qatar

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FIFA has spent decades expanding. The 2026 World Cup is the result: 48 teams, 104 matches, 16 cities across three countries, and roughly $11 billion in projected revenue.

Meanwhile, Qatar fit an entire World Cup inside a single metropolitan area. Fans could attend two matches in a day, teams barely boarded a bus, and the two farthest stadiums were about 55 kilometers apart. Compactness and operational precision became the defining characteristics of the event.

No future World Cup is likely to replicate Qatar's geography.

Qatar’s legacy may be the expectation that FIFA substantiate its biggest claims with evidence.

Questions about access, sustainability, and inclusion dominated the build-up to Qatar. By the time the tournament ended, those discussions produced outcomes that could be measured, analyzed, and compared.

FIFA's largest World Cup yet now faces the same test.

Qatar 2022

Test One — Can Expansion Preserve the Experience?

The upside of expansion is easy to itemize. More matches mean more broadcast windows, more sponsor slots, more gate receipts. Harder to account for is what made Qatar feel the way it did. There, being close to everything was the point; fans spent their time at matches rather than in transit. North America offers the opposite. Following a team will mean border crossings and flights.

That does not necessarily mean a smaller crowd. The three host nations hold some of the largest diaspora communities in the world, which gives many national teams a local audience already in place. When Bosnia and Herzegovina played a warm-up friendly in St. Louis this June, thousands of resident supporters turned out without having to board a plane.

The model of access has effectively inverted. Qatar made it easy to experience the whole tournament. North America makes it easier for more people to experience it close to home.

The remaining unknown is cost. FIFA is using dynamic pricing at a World Cup for the first time, allowing prices to move with demand. The early figures are not reassuring for ordinary fans. According to an analysis by The Athletic, average prices across FIFA's three main ticket categories rose roughly 34% between October and April. Seats that opened near $60 have climbed steeply for the marquee fixtures, and the most expensive tickets for the final now run well into five figures. The tournament's reach is widening. Whether its most devoted supporters can afford to be part of it is less certain.

Test Two — Can FIFA Defend Its Sustainability Claims?

Sustainability became one of the defining topics of Qatar 2022. Researchers challenged FIFA's carbon-neutrality pledge, watchdogs disputed the methodology, and regulators intervened.

Four years later, FIFA continues to promote sustainability as a core part of the tournament, focusing on emissions reduction, waste management, climate mitigation, and human rights.

The challenge is that independent estimates point to significantly higher emissions. Carbon-accounting firm Greenly estimates the 2026 World Cup could generate roughly 7.8 million tonnes of CO₂, more than double the 3.7 million tonnes FIFA reported for Qatar 2022. Researchers at Scientists for Global Responsibility estimate the figure at above 9 million tonnes, making it the most carbon-intensive World Cup ever staged.

The usual culprit does not apply here. Qatar built seven stadiums from scratch, and that construction accounted for close to a quarter of its footprint. The 2026 hosts are largely reusing existing venues, which reduces infrastructure to around 3% of the total. The emissions have moved into the air instead. Greenly attributes roughly 87% of them to spectator travel, and that is not something FIFA can engineer away, because it is not an oversight or mistake. It is the direct consequence of spreading a tournament across three countries and a continent.

Qatar turned sustainability from a talking point into a measurable claim. The 2026 World Cup will test whether FIFA can reconcile its sustainability commitments with the emissions projected for a tournament of this size.

Test Three — How Much Control Does FIFA Really Have Over Inclusion?

By taking the World Cup to the Middle East for the first time, FIFA brought the tournament closer to audiences that increasingly drive the sport's growth across Asia, Africa, and the Gulf.

Four years later, some of those same audiences sit at the center of a different question: who can actually attend the tournament?

Under a U.S. visa-bond program expanded ahead of the tournament, consular officers can require applicants from roughly 50 mostly developing countries to post a refundable bond of up to $15,000 before receiving a visitor visa. Five of those countries have qualified for the World Cup, all of them African: Algeria, Cape Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal, and Tunisia. The bonds are refundable, but they must be paid upfront — on top of flights, accommodation, and the tickets themselves — in countries where the average annual income is closer to $5,000.

A narrow waiver exists, but it underscores the problem rather than solving it: fans can avoid the bond only if they hold official match tickets and are registered through FIFA's appointment system before an April deadline. 

The contradiction is straightforward. The World Cup generates its wealth from global audiences, yet access to the tournament remains governed by national borders.

The question is not whether FIFA supports inclusion. It is how much influence FIFA actually has when access to its biggest event depends on immigration policy. FIFA sells football as a global game. Who gets to attend remains a decision that it does not fully control.

What 2026 Is Really Testing

Qatar did not provide a blueprint for future World Cups. The circumstances were too specific to replicate. What it left was a new standard of rigor. Questions about access, sustainability, and inclusion dominated the build-up to the tournament and remained central long after the final whistle.

Four years later, FIFA faces many of the same questions that it must answer with clear evidence. 

The 2026 World Cup will be the largest in history.

What history says about it will depend on the answers.

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Bibliography

1. Britannica — 2026 FIFA World Cup: Complete Guide. https://www.britannica.com/event/2026-FIFA-World-Cup
2. Al Jazeera — World Cup 2026 explained in maps and charts. https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2026/6/10/fifa-world-cup-2026-explained-in-maps-and-charts
3. The Trentonian / AP — FIFA expands World Cup to 104-game program ($11bn revenue). https://www.pressreader.com/usa/the-trentonian-trenton-nj/20230315/281852942799801
4. FIFA Publications — Revenue 2019-2022 ($7.57bn; compact tournament). https://publications.fifa.com/en/annual-report-2022/finances/2019-2022-cycle-in-review/2019-2022-revenue/
5. Al Jazeera — FIFA earns record $7.5bn revenue for Qatar World Cup. https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2022/11/20/fifa-revenue-hits-7-5b-for-current-world-cup-period
6. BBC Sport — Guide to the eight World Cup stadiums in Qatar (3.6Mt; 7 of 8 newly built). https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/sport/football/59868204
7. FourFourTwo — Qatar 2022 stadium distances (~45 miles max). https://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/qatar-world-cup-2022-stadiuns-how-big-is-al-bayt-stadium-who-plays-there-what-games-will-it-host-and-how-much-did-it-cost
8. St. Louis Magazine — How St. Louis became Bosnia's World Cup sendoff party. https://www.stlmag.com/news/sports/st-louis-bosnias-world-cup-sendoff/
9. STLPR — St. Louis Bosnians rally for pre-World Cup friendly (~60,000 community). https://www.stlpr.org/show/st-louis-on-the-air/2026-06-04/st-louis-world-cup-bosnia-game
10. Fortune — FIFA's dynamic pricing risks keeping fans from the World Cup ($60-$13,000). https://fortune.com/2026/06/02/fifa-dynamic-pricing-backfiring-soccer-fans-world-cup-ticket-costs/
11. Yahoo Sports — Thousands of World Cup tickets unsold as prices climb (34%; 90+ matches). https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/thousands-world-cup-tickets-remain-133211578.html
12. The Independent (AOL) — FIFA's dynamic pricing $60 to $6,730. https://www.aol.com/fifa-dynamic-pricing-2026-world-002107166.html
13. Greenly — FIFA World Cup 2026: What's the Real Carbon Footprint? (7.8Mt; 87.8%; 3.1%). https://greenly.earth/en-gb/leaf-media/data-stories/fifa-world-cup-2026whats-the-real-carbon-footprint
14. Inside World Football — Fan travel carbon footprint (7.8Mt vs 3.7Mt Qatar). https://www.insideworldfootball.com/2026/06/04/fan-travel-carbon-footprint-fifa-world-cup/
15. Scientists for Global Responsibility — 2026 World Cup most polluting ever (~9.02Mt). https://www.sgr.org.uk/resources/2026-fifa-men-s-world-cup-be-most-polluting-ever
16. BBC Sport — World Cup 2026 'most polluting ever'; Swiss regulator on Qatar carbon-neutral claim. https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cgjgw4l2717o
17. TIME — FIFA World Cup US visa bonds waiver (50 countries; 5 African; up to $15,000). https://time.com/article/2026/05/14/fifa-world-cup-us-visa-bonds-waiver-immigration-ice/
18. The Guardian (AOL) — Fans from five African countries face $15,000 bond (~$5,000 income). https://www.aol.com/sports/fans-players-five-african-world-190434304.html

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