With More Nations Than Ever, World Cup 2026 Brings a Security Challenge

The State Department had surged an additional 450 officers to handle visa applications from ‘World Cup enthusiastic countries’ like Argentina and Brazil.

People watch as President Donald Trump draws the United States during the FIFA World Cup 2026 draw on Dec. 5, 2026. Brendan McDermid/Reuters

The 2026 World Cup soccer tournament will present a major security challenge for its main host, the United States, due to the unprecedented scale of the event, experts have told The Epoch Times.

The draw for the 2026 World Cup was held in Washington on Dec. 5, and the following day, the tournament venues and schedule were announced.

The United States—which will host the final at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey—is sharing the tournament with Canada and Mexico.

For the first time, world soccer’s governing body, FIFA, has increased the number of participating nations from 32 to 48.

Such a complex tournament, which will be attended by hundreds of thousands of fans from around the world and feature 104 matches across three nations, will be a major headache for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and a logistical challenge for FIFA, the experts said.

“This is the first time they’ve run the event at this scale,” Cliff Stott, a professor of social psychology at Keele University in England and an expert on crowd behavior and public order, told The Epoch Times,

“It’s a significant expansion on any other previous tournament with more countries competing this time than ever before.”

“So more venues, different locations, three countries. It makes the security context very diluted,” Stott said.

‘Nefarious People Can Slip Through’

“Any time you have big gatherings and people from all over the world, nefarious people can slip through,” Lora Ries, director of the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation, told The Epoch Times.

She said terrorists or just those intent on overstaying their travel visas could “lie well” in their applications.

“So that’s why we’ve got to have so much scrutiny on the visa applications and continue to monitor and vet people when they do get a visa granted up until the time that they show up at our airports or other ports and onward, if appropriate,” Ries said.

Mohammed Atta, the leader of the 9/11 hijackers, held a valid Egyptian passport and obtained a multiple-entry visa at the United States Embassy in Berlin on May 18, 2000.

Egypt is due to play its first three games in next year’s World Cup in Seattle and Vancouver, and thousands of Egyptian fans are expected to apply for U.S. visas.

“Under the leadership of [President Donald] Trump and [Homeland Security Secretary Kristi] Noem, DHS is partnering with law enforcement to provide the tools necessary to ensure the safety of fans and cities during the 2026 FIFA World Cup, while showcasing American greatness on the world stage,” the DHS posted on X on Nov. 17.

“We look at this as a way to really invite the rest of the world to the United States of America, also understanding who’s coming here,” said Andrew Giuliani, executive director of the White House Task Force for the FIFA World Cup 2026, during a recent interview on Atlantic Council TV.

He said the State Department had surged an additional 450 officers to handle visa applications from “World Cup enthusiastic countries” like Argentina and Brazil.

In Argentina, which Giuliani described as “soccer-crazed,” wait times for visas in 2023 were upward of a year, and they are now down to two months.

Security Protocols Unchanged

“We’re not changing the security protocols in terms of getting in the country,” according to Giuliani, whose father, Rudy Giuliani, was mayor of New York when the United States last hosted the tournament in 1994.

That World Cup was watched by a total of 3,587,538 spectators, a record for the tournament that still stands to this day but will inevitably be beaten when 104 matches are played between June 11 and July 19.

But at least two teams will likely be deprived of incoming supporters as Iran, and Haiti—who are in the World Cup for the first time since 1974—are among the 19 countries on which the Trump administration imposed a travel ban on Dec. 2.

FIFA says more than a million people traveled to Qatar for the last World Cup, in 2022, with the greatest numbers coming from the United States, Saudi Arabia, Britain, Mexico, and India—who were not even playing in the tournament.

Considering that 16 additional nations are participating and that the United States, Canada, and Mexico are popular destinations, the number of travelers will likely be much higher.

Stott said the various locations and the distances involved in the 2026 edition of the tournament present a logistical challenge for soccer fans.

An England fan, for example, would have to travel from Texas to Massachusetts and then New Jersey to watch their first three matches, then if they made it all the way through to the final, would have to go to Atlanta, Mexico City, Miami, back to Atlanta, before ending up in New Jersey.

Risk of Visa Overstayers

Ries said a minority of those visiting for the World Cup would inevitably seek to stay on in the United States.

“That’s always a risk anytime there’s an opportunity for someone to come ’temporarily' to the U.S., that they don’t leave,” Ries said.

She said the State Department had data on visa overstay rates for every country, and, “depending on those rates, they need to dial up and dial down the scrutiny given to the applicants, and not be afraid to deny a visa.”

The draw has put the 48 nations into 12 groups, but the identities of some teams in six of those groups are not known, as they depend on a series of playoff matches at the end of March 2026.

The fourth nation in the group containing the United States, for example, could be any one of Turkey, Romania, Slovakia, or Kosovo.

Manolo Zubiria, chief tournament officer for the FIFA World Cup 2026, (L), and host Melanie Winiger (R) during the FIFA World Cup 2026 playoff draw in Zurich, Switzerland, on Nov. 20, 2025. Claudio Thoma/Keystone via AP

That means that fans of many countries will have only two months to apply for visas to the United States.

Several of those countries, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bolivia, Albania, and Iraq, may have issues with passport vetting.

Ries said she feared there would be diplomatic pressure on the State Department to issue visas to those fans, even when vetting issues arise.

Hooliganism a Minor Concern

Violence between fans of rival nations has not been a problem at a World Cup since 1990.

Russian fans did attack England supporters during the European Championships in France in 2016, but Russia will not be playing in next year’s tournament, having been suspended by FIFA following the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

England fans, an international menace during the 1980s and 1990s, have been well-behaved in recent tournaments.

“The idea that there are going to be challenges from hooliganism is not realistic,” Stott said.

“The challenges are more complex than that. They’re going to revolve around safety. They’re going to revolve around mobility.”

Coordination

Stott said the main issue for the organizers and the host nations was the diversity of law enforcement agencies involved in the safety and security response.

“In the past, historically, where we’ve looked at successful safety and security arrangements across the tournament as a whole, that’s come about through good coordination and a good unified safety and security policy,” he said.

“The current administration clearly values the spectacle of the World Cup and the publicity that will bring. But the flip side of that is the unpredictability of the political environment within which the tournament is taking place, and the dangers of certain administrations pursuing political agendas within the framework of safety and security context. ... There’s a volatility there that brings a level of unpredictability.”

Political Controversies

An example of a political agenda, Stott said, was Seattle’s decision to make the Egypt vs Iran game on June 26 an LGBT pride event, despite homosexuality being illegal in both countries. The Egyptian and Iranian football federations have both complained and urged FIFA to intervene.

Trump has also threatened to take games away from cities such as Boston, which he says are unsafe and prone to “street takeovers” by pro-Palestinian and anti-ICE protesters.

Boston Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, is set to host seven matches, and Trump told reporters on Oct. 14 that he would call FIFA President Gianni Infantino to have the games moved to another location if he felt there were “unsafe conditions” in Boston.

“It’s due to these cities and states not cooperating with federal government to enforce federal immigration laws,” said Ries, who added those jurisdictions were protecting “criminal aliens.”

“President Trump is right to not want to benefit these jurisdictions, who are flouting federal law and endangering American citizens,” she said, but noted she was not sure how feasible it would be to order FIFA to move the games, which they had contractually agreed to host in those cities.

The State Department said the United States is ready “to welcome visitors from around the globe for the largest and greatest FIFA World Cup in history.”

“The Trump administration is doing everything possible to support a successful World Cup without sacrificing our national security,” the department said in a statement emailed to The Epoch Times.

“The United States is ensuring that every FIFA World Cup ticket holder who needs a U.S. visa has the opportunity to schedule an interview appointment in time to attend what promises to be the most thrilling World Cup ever.”

The Epoch Times has reached out to FIFA but has not received a response.