"Once the tournament starts, if your team starts performing well, all of a sudden, irrespective of politics, money, and everything else, people will jump on planes — they just do." That quote from tourism researcher Alan Fyall is the entire economic case for the 2026 World Cup in a single sentence. The question isn't whether fans will want to come. It's whether they'll be allowed to, and whether the U.S. makes it worth the effort.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino has been calling this tournament "the biggest event probably in the history of mankind." You can discount the hyperbole, but the underlying math is real. When Argentina reached the 2022 final, bookings to Qatar nearly doubled — most flight tickets purchased just two days before the match. That's the irrational, last-minute, all-or-nothing energy that makes a World Cup unlike any other sporting event on earth.
European fans are the low-hanging fruit
Argentina, England, Brazil, and Germany consistently rank among the biggest international ticket-demand markets, according to FIFA data. England's supporters clubs are almost uniquely organized — between 12,000 and 15,000 fans are expected at each of the Three Lions' three group matches in Dallas, Boston, and New Jersey. That's before a single knockout result has been confirmed. Germany travels in similarly large numbers, though their 2018 group-stage exit was a cautionary tale about what happens when a fanbase books early and the team goes home first.
For European fans, logistics are genuinely manageable. Seven of the top 10 FIFA-ranked nations — Spain, France, England, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany — are in the U.S. Visa Waiver Program. A $40 ESTA application, approved within 72 hours. That's it. A last-minute surge if England, Germany, or Spain make a run to the final is entirely plausible, and the economic knock-on effect — hotels, flights, bars, restaurants — would be substantial across host cities.
The calculus is harsher for fans from Argentina (ranked No. 1 in the world), Brazil, and Morocco. An in-person embassy interview, a $185 fee, wait times of 15 to 30 days, and then three to ten business days for processing. With fewer than 40 days to the final, that window is nearly shut. If Argentina or Brazil makes a deep run — as both historically do — a huge portion of their most passionate fans simply won't be able to get there in time.
The welcome mat problem
Here's where the economic optimism runs into something harder to quantify. The Trump administration has made entry into the U.S. considerably more complicated for much of the world. Fans from more than a quarter of the World Cup's participating nations are facing travel bans, visa restrictions, or high rejection rates. A Somali referee was turned away at Miami despite holding a valid visa. Iraqi player Aymen Hussein was detained for nearly seven hours at O'Hare. Iranian squad members only received visas at the last minute, with some staff still waiting.
When asked about the referee incident, Infantino told reporters it's "sometimes good to just chill, relax." That response landed about as well as you'd expect.
Roughly 65% of Americans oppose ICE being present inside World Cup stadiums, per a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said ICE won't operate inside venues. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin hasn't ruled out arrests in the surrounding areas. That distinction — technically not inside the stadium — is doing a lot of heavy lifting when you're trying to convince an international fanbase to book a transatlantic trip.
Jan Freitag, national director of hospitality analytics at CoStar, put it plainly: his friends and family in Germany aren't planning to attend, citing ticket prices and the perceived hassle of getting into the country. This isn't fringe sentiment. Perception, once baked in, is very hard to dislodge — and for international visitors deciding right now whether to spend thousands of dollars on a trip, the headlines coming out of the U.S. have not been reassuring.
- European fans (VWP countries) face a 72-hour ESTA process and ~$40 fee — last-minute travel is genuinely viable
- Argentine, Brazilian, and Moroccan fans face embassy interviews, $185 fees, and waits of up to 30+ days
- Argentina and Brazil are both ranked inside the top 6 globally — both are realistic deep-run candidates
- FIFA projects a 50/50 split between domestic and international visitors across host cities
Tourism Economics senior economist Tariq Khan framed the whole thing around the "irrationality of the global soccer fan" — the idea that emotion overrides every practical obstacle. That irrationality is real. It's what made Qatar work. But even irrational fans need a visa, and the U.S. has made it demonstrably harder for the most passionate fanbases in world football to get one.
