The Thursday-evening event at Penn Social, a generic downtown bar, was meant to be a celebration. Administrators from Events DC, the government agency that had been tasked with running Washington, D.C. and Baltimore’s joint bid to host 2026 World Cup matches, milled about, eagerly awaiting the news. A few dozen fans had the same expectation as they downed beers and wings. It seemed unthinkable — how could a World Cup be held in the United States without games in the nation’s capital? D.C.’s status as a host city seemed a foregone conclusion.
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Yet, as the tournament’s easternmost host cities were listed off one by one, the air began to leave the room. Toronto. Miami. Boston. Philadelphia. Atlanta. By the time FIFA president Gianni Infantino read the final location — which everybody in the room knew would be the New York/New Jersey bid — stunned silence had been replaced with a cacophony of groans, sighs and a few horrified shrieks.
Absolute shock in the room as DC is passed over as a host city. A World Cup without matches in the national capital seems unthinkable, but here we are. pic.twitter.com/rvvwy3ByJM
— Pablo Iglesias Maurer (@MLSist) June 16, 2022
Former D.C. United head coach Ben Olsen walked in right around that time. As he descended the stairs into the bar, he was met by a sea of despondent faces. Earlier that day, he’d done a pair of television appearances touting the capital’s sure-thing status.
“I was on TV today saying, ‘What are you talking about? It’s the nation’s capital. Yes, of course we’ll get the bid.’” Olsen paused. “So I guess I was a little naive in this process, too.”
D.C.’s snub was probably the only real surprise on Thursday. A few of the cities were shoe-ins — Dallas, New York/New Jersey, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta and the like. Even in the northeast and mid-Atlantic, stacked up against cities like Philadelphia and Boston, D.C. seemed a relatively sure bet to any outside observer. Just once before — in 1974 — had there been a World Cup without games in the capital region of a host nation (Ottawa did not bid to host matches.)
Yet the D.C./Baltimore bid has never been a straightforward one. The two cities started out bidding independently, with D.C.’s effort centered around suburban FedEx Field, the home of the NFL’s Washington Commanders. The venue is bleak, charmless, difficult to get to and roundly despised by locals. Commanders owner Daniel Snyder’s relationship with the entire D.C., Maryland and Virginia region is tenuous at best, and the stadium itself — which is nearing the end of its usable lifespan, realistically — would’ve needed extensive renovations to meet FIFA’s stadium standards.
Baltimore had their stadium situation sorted out. The city offered up M&T Bank Stadium, home of the NFL’s Ravens, as a viable option. The 70,000-seat venue was built for American football, but the architects who designed the place also kept soccer in mind. It’s hosted multiple CONCACAF Gold Cups and a number of international friendlies. What Baltimore lacked, maybe, was a bit of curb appeal, which D.C. offered up in droves — the National Mall, the Tidal Basin, all of the visuals that people across the world are used to seeing. So the two sides merged, at FIFA’s suggestion. Games would be held at M&T, while the FIFA Fan Fest would be held at the National Mall, with a handful of teams also using the District as a training base.
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It wasn’t immediately clear why D.C.’s bid failed on Thursday night — Events DC expects to engage with FIFA to gain more clarity in the coming weeks. But many associated with the bid had their own ideas.
Local businessman Mark Ein, who owns the World Team Tennis Washington Kastles and served as co-chair of the city’s World Cup advisory committee, was as shocked as anybody in attendance, but also understood the drawbacks of the joint venture.
“The strength of the community (here in D.C.), the passion for soccer, the history of soccer, the fan fest on the national mall, combined with a really good stadium, seemed compelling,” said Ein. “But it’s also complicated, right? It’s not one city, there’s some distance between the two, it hasn’t really been done so maybe that scared them away. And then, you know Washington — as a place to live, as a place we all love and are passionate about, it’s a complicated city for people who aren’t here when you see all the images that come up and I think sometimes that scares people away.”
While Ein did not explicitly mention some of the more recent images associated with the National Mall — specifically the events of Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempted insurrection — his insinuation felt clear enough. Others associated with the bid relayed the same concern; that outside observers have a tainted view of the national capital as of late, taking a myopic view that fails to account for the District’s true identity as a city.
“We don’t know (whether FIFA felt that way) and we’ll find out,” said Ein. “Once people come and understand what it’s like to live and visit here, they love it. But if they haven’t done that — the images broadcast around the world are just of a different place. I’m not necessarily saying that’s what happened here. But it’s the thing we always face. For as great as it is, there’s always this other side, the counter-marketing against Washington and the political capital which isn’t the town we live in. That causes problems.”
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More realistically, the bid probably just proved too complex. Though Baltimore and D.C. are practically in the same metro area — and residents commute back and forth between the two cities on a daily basis — the joint bid was fairly unprecedented. M&T Bank Stadium, built in the late ‘90s, is a fine venue for soccer but by no means a standout.
At a press conference in New York, neither FIFA president Gianni Infantino nor CONCACAF president and FIFA vice president Victor Montagliani addressed the thought process behind the decision to exclude D.C./Baltimore, instead leaving Colin Smith, FIFA’s chief tournaments and events officer, to answer for why the U.S. capital was left off the list of host cities. He didn’t get very specific in his answer, though Infantino seemed to confirm that FIFA will hold a fan fest on the National Mall.
“It’s been an incredibly competitive process and all the cities have been amazing,” he said. “And so, you know, this was a very, very difficult choice. It’s hard to imagine, you can’t imagine a World Cup coming to the U.S and the capital city not not taking a major role, as well. So, you know, we’ve been engaging with all the cities that weren’t chosen to host matches, and there’s still lots of other areas of cooperation and working together and celebration. We know what a fan fest on the National Mall would be like, 250th anniversary of the U.S. on the Fourth of July in ‘26, so we’ve been engaging with all cities to make sure that not only those 16 that we chose today, not only the cities that unfortunately were not successful, but in fact all the cities across the three countries can celebrate this World Cup.”
A source familiar with FIFA’s general thought process told The Athletic on Thursday that FIFA’s final decision, which wasn’t made until late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning, according to Infantino, likely came down to Boston and Washington/Baltimore. The source said that the political pull of New England Patriots and Revolution owner Robert Kraft, who was the honorary chair of the 2026 United Bid Committee and a member of the board of directors for the U.S.’s bid for the 2018 or 2022 World Cups, likely played a role in tipping the scales in Boston’s favor.
“I think once Philadelphia and Boston got announced, it was hard to imagine that it’d also be games in Baltimore and D.C.,” said Ein.
Ein took an even-handed approach when asked if he felt that FIFA’s selection process, which was handled in-house, was a fair one, calling the organization a “class organization, today, that’s run really well. They handled the bid process as professionally as they could.”
“On behalf of our advisory board, we’re obviously very disappointed in the outcome,” said Max Brown, the chairman of Events DC’s board of directors. “We know D.C. is a soccer town, we know Baltimore is a soccer town and we put together a great, great bid. Let me also say, D.C. is the number one-ranked market for English Premier League Soccer, so I don’t know what the hell FIFA was looking at.”
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Brown’s words didn’t quite connect with those in attendance on Thursday night, drawing a boo or two. They were delivered from behind a podium bearing the seal of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office — Bowser was scheduled to speak at the event, but after the District lost its bid, she never took the stage. With the city’s mayoral primary right around the corner, she may have been wary of tethering herself to a losing effort.
The failed bid is unquestionably a blow to the District’s reputation as one of American soccer’s hubs. It has hosted a men’s World Cup in 1994, Women’s World Cups in 1999 and 2003 and 1996 Summer Olympics soccer matches. RFK Stadium, which is slated for demolition, has hosted more U.S. men’s national team games than any other stadium in the country. The city is home to the NWSL champion Washington Spirit and Major League Soccer’s D.C. United.
It remains to be seen what part the District will play a role in the 2026 World Cup after Thursday’s letdown; residents of the city would surely still enjoy whatever sort of “fan fest” FIFA throws at them, but it also may prove cold comfort to people in one of America’s most dedicated soccer markets.
(Photo: Tony Quinn/ISI Photos)
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