Houston’s right in the mix, and after that we’ll see.
This time last year, former Houston Dynamo president Chris Canetti began to find his stride after leaving the team in late 2018 to lead the Houston 2026 World Cup Bid Committee.
This time next year, he hopes the committee and the city will be preparing to host those World Cup matches, which will be played in 16 cities across the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Canada and Mexico will host three games each. The other 10 host cities will be chosen from a pool of 17 American venues which include those in Seattle, Atlanta, Dallas, Philadelphia and Baltimore.
“We’re expecting U.S. Soccer and FIFA to be making a decision on the final 10 cities … at some point this year, so all focus is on that,” Canetti said.
[…]
While the Houston Dash and Dynamo host home games at BBVA Stadium (capacity: 22,000), the committee has proposed NRG Stadium (capacity: 71,995) to host Houston’s matches, although it’s not large enough to be eligible to host any semifinal or final matches.
Canetti and his staff spent 2019 assembling a board of directors, raising private funds to cover the cost of the bid process and developing their plan to differentiate Houston from the other U.S. cities.
In 2020, he’s expecting to receive more detail that outlines when meetings and site visits to Houston will occur.
“We’re waiting to hear from them in terms of what the guidelines may be on a site visit. How long will they be here? Will they be here a day, two days, three days? What do they expect to do and see when they’re in town?” he said. “Based on that information, we’ll be able to draft and develop an entire itinerary for them to showcase the city. It’s hard to say exactly what that entails until we know what the expectations are.”
See here for the last update, which was indeed a year ago at this time. Not much more to say here – Houston is very well suited to host this event, but the competition is stiff. I wish we knew more about when the decision will be made. Nothing to do but wait.
Typical sloppy writing by the Houston Chronicle.
Mexico and Canada will host 10 games each, not 3. Can’t even get basic simple facts correct.
Houston hosting 6 matches would be heaven for Houston soccer fans,