104 Matches, 48 Nations — and Haitian Fans Can't Even Get In: The World Cup's Two Faces
The 2026 FIFA World Cup, set to open on June 11 across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, marks the most expansive tournament in the event's 96-year history — 48 nations, 104 matches, and 16 host cities spread across a single continent. For the first time, nations including Curaçao, Cape Verde, Uzbekistan, and Jordan will take the world's biggest football stage, representing genuine geographic expansion after decades of European and South American dominance. Yet the same tournament faces mounting scrutiny over U.S. travel restrictions affecting 75 countries, which have left fans from Haiti, Iran, and several other qualified nations structurally unable to attend their teams' matches in person, placing FIFA's long-standing "Football for All" ethos under direct challenge. More than 174,000 people in the Netherlands alone have signed a boycott petition, though the historical record shows no World Cup participating nation has ever successfully withdrawn from the tournament. This article examines the three-way collision of format expansion, political exclusion, and a $10.9 billion revenue ambition that makes this the most contested World Cup in the modern era. **카테고리**: sports