By Andrew Warshaw
April 17 – Morocco’s bid to stage the 2026 World Cup has reached its most crucial phase to date with the arrival of FIFA’s evaluation panel for a three-day visit that could make or break the north African country’s chances.
April 17 – They can protest all they like about being unfairly singled out, but FIFA has charged World Cup hosts Russia with fan racism less than two months before the tournament begins.
April 17 – South Africa has announced it is supporting Morocco’s 2026 World Cup bid, a potentially crucial move that could affect what many experts have predicted will be a split in how the Continent votes in June.
By Paul Nicholson
April 14 – South American confederation CONMEBOL has pledged the votes of its 10 member associations to the United 2026 bid (Canada, Mexico and the US). Their announcement gives the North Americans a timely boost with FIFA’s 2026 bid evaluation committee having just completed their four-city tour of North America, and now heading to bid rival Morocco.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 12 – Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter has added his voice to growing discontent over the criteria for selecting the 2026 World Cup hosts.
April 10 – Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay have agreed on the 12 cities they want for the centenary World Cup in 2030 should they win the right to host, but are not naming them yet.
April 10 – FIFA’s 2026 bid inspection team have moved on from Mexico City to Atlanta in the US for the second leg of their three-country, four-stop evaluation tour.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 9 – The next crucial stage in the race to stage the 2026 World Cup gets under way today when FIFA begins the all-important process of evaluating the respective bids of USA-Canada-Mexico and Morocco by sending its panel of technical experts into the respective regions.
April 9 – Fans, especially those from England, should “think twice” before travelling to Russia for the World Cup because consular services will be less effective as a result of the recent diplomatic expulsions following the nerve agent poisoning affair, the White House has warned.
April 9 – Russian Railways has become an official sponsor of the 2018 Russia World Cup, taking a third-tier regional association alongside Alfa-Bank and Rostelcom.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 4 – Morocco’s claim of unfair treatment by FIFA in the bidding process for the 2026 World Cup has been strongly rejected by football’s world governing body which has moved swiftly into face-saving overdrive in an effort to maintain credibility.
April 4 – Dominica has become the second CONCACAF nation after St Lucia to come out and confirm it is backing Morocco for the 2026 World Cup despite being part of the same confederation as the rival United 2026 bid.
April 4 – With Qatar having already stated it is supporting Morocco for the 2026 World Cup, Saudi Arabia has said that it is going the other way as the race to clinch Asian backing hots up.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 30 – Gianni Infantino’s insistence that the voting process to choose the 2026 World Cup hosts will be scrupulously fair and clean has come under grave scrutiny amid suspicions of underhand tactics by FIFA over the scoring system being used to assess the two contenders.
April 3 – Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has accused the UK and US of using the poisoning scandal to try and take the World Cup away from her country.