World Cup 2026

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WillD said:
Absolutely ridiculous.

Vancouver to Boston, 6,161 miles 3072 (but i get your point)
Mexico to Boston, 2,777 miles.

Some perspective London to Rome 1,776 miles passing through 7 countries (England, France, Belgium, Luxemburg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy
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I said it when I started this thread back in October that I thought the World Cup could be a fiasco and I still stand by it, however it's got the potential to be worse than I thought. The World Cup is only just over 3 months away and the mess is deepening.

It's getting reported now that Iran are likely to withdraw from the tournament. Not a big loss in a lot of peoples opinion, but it throws more confusion into the tournament organisation. Now the bigger problem from this. Saudi, Qatar and Jordan have all qualified, with Iraq in the play offs. We don't know who will replace Iran if they pull out, the UAE were knocked by Iraq in the the qualifiers, so could potentially be called in as a replacement for either Iraq in the play offs (with Iraq replacing Iran) or replacing Iran directly. It could be up to 5 countries taking part from a war zone. That's possibly 5 sets of supporters travelling to the the World Cup who could be targeted by Iran or have Iranian sympathisers travel with them to cause problems. If this is still carrying on then or the Iranian regime survives until then, how much of a security risk is it to those teams? Stadiums might be too secure as a target. But training venues, fan parks or even just causing mayhem in other city locations in host cities means enough threat to increase security.

Add in the ongoing problem in Mexico after the execution of the drug lord (they are ruthless enough that even though staging games is financially beneficial to them they'd not be too bothered if innocent visitors were collateral damage in their fight against the government, in fact the threat of that is one of their greatest weapons) and you've got a huge security mess all round to deal with. The expanded World Cup size means it's almost impossible to take games away from the USA and stage them in the other two countries because of facilities and scheduling and stripping all three and relocating it at such short notice is pretty much impossible as well without delaying it.
 
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C Montgomery Burns said:
I said it when I started this thread back in October that I thought the World Cup could be a fiasco and I still stand by it, however it's got the potential to be worse than I thought. The World Cup is only just over 3 months away and the mess is deepening.

It's getting reported now that Iran are likely to withdraw from the tournament. Not a big loss in a lot of peoples opinion, but it throws more confusion into the tournament organisation. Now the bigger problem from this. Saudi, Qatar and Jordan have all qualified, with Iraq in the play offs. We don't know who will replace Iran if they pull out, the UAE were knocked by Iraq in the the qualifiers, so could potentially be called in as a replacement for either Iraq in the play offs (with Iraq replacing Iran) or replacing Iran directly. It could be up to 5 countries taking part from a war zone. That's possibly 5 sets of supporters travelling to the the World Cup who could be targeted by Iran or have Iranian sympathisers travel with them to cause problems. If this is still carrying on then or the Iranian regime survives until then, how much of a security risk is it to those teams? Stadiums might be too secure as a target. But training venues, fan parks or even just causing mayhem in other city locations in host cities means enough threat to increase security.

Add in the ongoing problem in Mexico after the execution of the drug lord (they are ruthless enough that even though staging games is financially beneficial to them they'd not be too bothered if innocent visitors were collateral damage in their fight against the government, in fact the threat of that is one of their greatest weapons) and you've got a huge security mess all round to deal with. The expanded World Cup size means it's almost impossible to take games away from the USA and stage them in the other two countries because of facilities and scheduling and stripping all three and relocating it at such short notice is pretty much impossible as well without delaying it.
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I suppose I am lucky I don’t give a s hit about it, so if it doesn’t even take place it’s no big loss. :emoticon-0148-yes:
 
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once it was reported that qatar had 'won' that world cup i lost interest.

usa is not a football country, they love thier 'hand-ball' game. the middle east has never been football...it does not seem a lot but it will cause a fair few to give up on it and right now trump wanting the whole world to be 'murican is going to cause a lot of problems.

i really hope it all goes well and peaceful for the sake of everyone involved but i dare say most of those with interest would prefer it in europe or south america or give africa another shot...actually, feck it, it wont cost me anything.
 
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samwise_new said:
once it was reported that qatar had 'won' that world cup i lost interest.

usa is not a football country, they love thier 'hand-ball' game. the middle east has never been football...it does not seem a lot but it will cause a fair few to give up on it and right now trump wanting the whole world to be 'murican is going to cause a lot of problems.

i really hope it all goes well and peaceful for the sake of everyone involved but i dare say most of those with interest would prefer it in europe or south america or give africa another shot...actually, feck it, it wont cost me anything.
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Ditto. Obviously hope we win it but wont be going out of my way to stay up or get up for the matches.
 
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samwise_new said:
once it was reported that qatar had 'won' that world cup i lost interest.

usa is not a football country, they love thier 'hand-ball' game. the middle east has never been football...it does not seem a lot but it will cause a fair few to give up on it and right now trump wanting the whole world to be 'murican is going to cause a lot of problems.

i really hope it all goes well and peaceful for the sake of everyone involved but i dare say most of those with interest would prefer it in europe or south america or give africa another shot...actually, feck it, it wont cost me anything.
Click to expand...
It will not bother me one way or another. I might watch some, but I won't put myself out to do it and what I miss I won't bother catching up on.

Boiling, scorching heat, dodgy, temporary pitches, far too many teams, appalling refereeing, huge travelling distances, colossal prices, some bad kick off times, a largely disinterested native population and ran by the most corrupt organisation in world sport.

EUEFA, is far from perfect, but the EUROS is a massively superior tournament.
 
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rowley said:
It will not bother me one way or another. I might watch some, but I won't put myself out to do it and what I miss I won't bother catching up on.

Boiling, scorching heat, dodgy, temporary pitches, far too many teams, appalling refereeing, huge travelling distances, colossal prices, some bad kick off times, a largely disinterested native population and ran by the most corrupt organisation in world sport.

EUEFA, is far from perfect, but the EUROS is a massively superior tournament.
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I won’t watch any of it, the same as last time.
 
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I really think that it'll be a disaster of a world cup. For all the controversy involving the last two world cup hosts, the tournaments were saved by some really good matches. With this one, though, the kick off times, bloated format and the conditions risk making it a dull tournament. If that's the case along with the ticket prices, fans being gouged for hotels and transport, possible ICE raids on spectators, Trump and his megalomania and wars, it could end up being one of the worst and most unpopular world cups ever.

Think of it like the Olympics and the Atlanta games, mostly thought of badly by anyone outside America. I was at a sports talk in on Radio 5 Live a good few years ago where Steve Cramm called Atlanta "the pits", Tanni Grey Thompson said they were dismantling the venues around the competitors while events were going on during the Paralympics. Now there's practically nothing to say that the Olympics were ever there, this world cup could be similar.
 
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