At the 2026 World Cup, there will be more winners than just the champion |
Who wouldn’t want to know who the winner of the 2026 FIFA World Cup will be? That’s impossible without a crystal ball. In reality, along with the champion team, there will be many winners.
That’s because every qualifying team receives millions of dollars, in addition to benefiting from the exceptional visibility the tournament brings. This is especially true for the host teams.
When everyone is concentrating on who will win the trophy, the financial aspect of the World Cup can be easy to overlook. But for the competing teams, just qualifying is a victory. The 2026 edition is offering record financial bonuses to qualifying teams, reflecting the scale of the expanded 48-team tournament.
As a full professor of accounting and taxation at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business, I want to look at who the financial winners of the 2026 World Cup already are. I’ve published three detailed research notes on the questions of governance and finance with respect to the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
The performance-based prize fund
The qualification process for the 2026 edition required the 48 participating teams to successfully navigate the selection stages within their respective confederations. The three host countries — Canada, Mexico and the United States — were automatically included.
These 48 nations can already be considered winners. The financial framework for the 2026 FIFA World Cup is divided into two distinct components: a performance-based prize fund of US$655 million and a non-performance-based financial support program of US$871 million.
Unlike the basic distribution program, which guarantees equal support to all teams, the prize fund introduces a merit-based incentive structure that rewards on-field performance and........