President Donald Trump has warned countries against opposing the joint 2026 FIFA World Cup bid by the US, Canada and Mexico, threatening that they will lose US support.
“It would be a shame if countries that we always support were to lobby against the U.S. bid,” Trump wrote on Twitter.
“Why should we be supporting these countries when they don’t support us (including at the United Nations)?”
The US, Canada and Mexico have launched a joint bid to host the global football tournament in eight years’ time, when 60 of the 80 matches would be staged within the US and Canada.
The joint bid faces strong competition from Morocco, which has never before hosted the tournament – while the US held football’s showpiece event in 1994.
World football’s governing body, FIFA, will chose the 2026 World Cup host nation at the FIFA Congress scheduled for June 13 in Moscow, one day before the opening game of the 2018 football showpiece in Russia.