https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6683-6669
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ABSTRACT
Rationale/Purpose: In June 2018 FIFA awarded the 2026 Men's Football World Cup tournament to a transnational bid comprising the United States, Canada and Mexico. We explore this moment of historical conjuncture to understand the interplay of football, SME processes, geopolitical symbolism, and legacy craft.
Design/Methodology/Approach: Drawing on a critical document analysis of bid material, media reports, economic analysis, and secondary evaluation, we analyse how the United As One bid's core legacy tenets of certainty, opportunity and unity produced a complex narrative of economic, sporting, and political harmony and prosperity.
Findings: We contend that while the bid employs common legacy tropes and axioms, United As One exposes the sustained fallacies implicit within bid constructions and paucity of legacy as a currency in the future of SME enterprise.
Practical Implications: Stakeholder alliances are fundamental to sport mega-event bidding. Yet, collaborations are politically complex as each party balances benefits and risks. Accordingly, this paper forewarns all bid actors to be cogniscent of the roles they may play within the symbolism and rhetoric of bid construction.
Research Contribution: Beyond the context of football, this paper adds new insights to ways sport megaevent bid visions fuse economic, socio-cultural, and public health advancement rhetoric to consolidate and masque persuasive host and legacy agendas.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1 The United Bid routed its only challenger, Morocco, by a final vote of 134 to 65.
2 Such goals have also been crystalized by the closer relationship both entities, and prospective host nations, have also forged with the United Nations in pursuit of the UN’s 17 Global Sustainable Development Goals.
3 Further committee members include: Don Garber (Commissioner of Major League Soccer); Dan Flynn, (Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives); Carlos Cordeiro (who resigned in March 2020 over criticism of his administrative oversight of the US women’s team; Donna Shalala (Democratic member of the US House of Representatives and Political Science Professor at the University of Miami); Decio De Maria (President of the Mexican Football Federation); Steven Reed (President of the Canadian Soccer Association); Guillermo Cantu (Gen. Sec, Mexican Football Federation); Carlos Bocanegra (Technical Director of Atlanta United F.C); Julie Foudy (Retired professional soccer player, twice FIFA Women’s FWC winner, & Founder of the Julie Foudy Sports Leadership Academy); and Ed Foster-Simeon (President & CEO of US Soccer Foundation).
4 To note, to ensure continental rotation of hosting duties, the FIFA Council announced in 2014 that football associations in Europe and Asia were not invited to submit bids, as these continental confederations had hosted one of previous two MWCs.
5 In terms of trade and commercial relations, The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) account for US$1 trillion a year in trade between Canada, Mexico, and the US.
6 Including, Canada’s Soccer Pathway and Active Start Soccer Fests programs; Grassroots Mexico and Abrazos por el futbol of the Mexican Football Federation, and the USSF’s Soccer for Success and Safe Places to Play programs.