Donald Trump repeated his appeal to foreign nations to support the United States’ joint bid with Canada and Mexico for the 2026 World Cup during a press conference on Monday in defiance of last week’s warning by Fifa against the use of political influence during the bidding process.
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“I hope all African countries and countries throughout the world, that we also will be supporting you and that they will likewise support us in our bid, along with Canada and Mexico, for the 2026 World Cup,” Trump said in a joint White House press conference with Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari.
“We will be watching very closely, and any help they can give us in that bid we would appreciate,” he said.
The US president was speaking in the Rose Garden alongside Buhari, the first African leader to visit the White House during his presidency, following their one-on-one bilateral meeting and working lunch. The comments on the World Cup directly followed Trump’s assertion that the United States hopes “to be the economic partner of choice for nations across the continent and all around the world”.
“You see what’s happening with respect to trade and the United States,” he said. “We are being respected again.”
But Morocco, which would become only the second African nation to host a World Cup after South Africa in 2010, has six soccer stadiums with 45,000 seats or more already in use, meaning it would not require as much new construction as previous host nations.
The North African country with long coastlines along the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea previously bid for the World Cup in 1994, 1998, 2006 and 2010. Their bid is expected to receive strong backing from Fifa’s African and Middle East members.
France plans to back Morocco, the country’s football federation president told local media recently, while Russia, which will host the 2018 tournament this summer, has said it will also vote for the Moroccan bid. Other potential supporters reportedly include Spain, Portugal and Belgium.
The United States previously hosted the World Cup in 1994, and that 24-team, 52-match tournament still holds the all-time attendance record (with nearly 3.6m spectators), despite a subsequent expansion of the format to 32 teams and 64 matches. Mexico hosted the tournament in 1970 and 1986, while Canada hosted the women’s World Cup in 2015.
Fifa’s 207 member countries receive one vote each, regardless of size.
Trump’s remarks on Monday came after he articulated a desire for Nigeria to remove trade barriers to allow additional US investment in the African nation.
