Could the U. S., Canada and Mexico team up for a 2026 World Cup bid?
FIFA is looking to regain trust after bribery investigations began in 2015. It got so bad, that marketing partners demanded changes.
In Ocotber, 2015, it was highly unlikely McDonald’s is going to be sending its 1971 commercial of Barry Manilow singing “You Deserve a Break Today” or Coca Cola will forward the old commercial which “would like to teach the world to sing” to Sepp Blatter. The  two multiple national companies, along with VISA and Anheuser Busch, who were marketing partners with soccer’s governing body, FIFA, wanted Blatter out of his position running the organization.
It generally is not a good sign major marketing partners request the president of a company they sponsor to step down and the president of the company refuses. Sepp Blatter, the President of FIFA, told McDonald’s and Coca Cola he would not resign after both companies issued statements suggesting that Blatter should call it quits after it was announced by authorities in Switzerland that Blatter was the subject of a criminal investigation. The United States Department of Justice and the Swiss Attorney General are investigation allegations of corruption by FIFA officials. In May, the US Justice Department arrested 14 FIFA and sports marketing officials. Blatter was re-elected to another term as FIFA president. But Blatter was kicked out on December 21, 2015. Â FIFA’s problem was those arrests of the 14 on charges of racketeering, money laundering and wire fraud in connection with suspected bribery. As of now, the 2018 World Cup will take place in Russia and the 2022 international tournament will be held in Qatar. There are suspicions that Russia and Qatar sports officials bribed FIFA to land the events. Â FIFA now wants to show people that the organization is reasonable and countries should share World Cup responsibility in restoring FIFA’s integrity. That may be a tall order.
The World Cup will take place in Russia in 2018.
