FIFA’s vice-president Victor Montagliani has told US President Donald Trump that FIFA, not any government, ultimately decides which cities will host 2026 World Cup games.
The football administrator who doubles as president of CONCACAF disclosed this at a conference in London after the American suggested he would move games away from cities he thought could be “even a little dangerous for the World Cup”.
As such Victor Montagliani, president of North American soccer’s governing body and a FIFA vice president, dismissed the possibility of FIFA responding to Trump’s threat.
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“If I have to react every time a politician makes a statement, whether it’s a president, a senator, a congressman or even in my country and Mexico, then I wouldn’t be doing my job,” he said at The Summit, part of Leaders Week London 2025. “We’re focused on the 16 venues and making sure they’re ready to go.
“He is the president, fair enough, and words are a little heavier when it’s a president, but from an operational perspective it wasn’t really taken into consideration.
“At the end of the day it’s FIFA’s tournament, FIFA makes those decisions. Even in the early days when we were deciding on the cities, it was our decisions based on the standards. If FIFA wanted to, for whatever reason, move a knockout game, it is ultimately their jurisdiction.”
