About our FIFA World Cup news
Latest news on FIFA's World Cup, with the most recent tournament being held in Qatar and the 2026 tournament set to be hosted by Canada, the United States and Mexico.
The FIFA World Cup is the most prestigious and widely followed international association football tournament in the world. The tournament has been held every four years since the inaugural tournament in 1930, with the exception of 1942 and 1946 when it was not held due to World War II. The tournament is organized by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and contested by the senior men's national teams of FIFA members.
The format of the tournament involves a qualification phase, which takes place over the preceding three years, to determine which teams qualify for the tournament phase. In the tournament phase, 32 teams compete for the title at venues within the host nation(s) over about a month. The host nation(s) automatically qualify to the group stage of the tournament. As of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, 22 final tournaments have been held and a total of 80 national teams have competed.
Brazil, with five wins, are the only team to have played in every tournament. The other World Cup winners are Germany and Italy, with four titles each; Argentina, with three titles; France and inaugural winner Uruguay, each with two titles; and England and Spain, with one title each. The World Cup is considered the most prestigious association football tournament in the world, as well as the most widely viewed and followed single sporting event in the world. The viewership of the 2018 World Cup was estimated to be 3.57 billion (half of the global population) with an estimated 1.12 billion people watching the final match.Seventeen countries have hosted the World Cup, most recently Qatar, who hosted the 2022 edition.
The 2026 tournament will be jointly hosted by 16 cities in three North American countries: Canada, Mexico and the United States. United States will host 60 matches including every match from the quarterfinals onward, while Canada and Mexico will each host 10 matches. This is the first tournament to feature 48 teams, an expansion from 32 and will feature 80 matches in total, first tournament hosted by three nations, with Argentina as the defending champion. The United 2026 bid beat Morocco during the final vote at the 68th FIFA Congress in Moscow. Mexico will become the first country to host or co-host the men's World Cup three times, United States last host was 1994 and this will be Canada's first time hosting. The tournament will be held in the traditional northern summer schedule after the 2022 edition was held in November and December.