Soccer-Factbox on the winning North American bid for the 2026 World Cup

June 13 (Reuters) - Factbox on the joint North American bid
by the United States, Mexico and Canada that was chosen to host
the 2026 World Cup by the FIFA Congress in Moscow on Wednesday.

Main points of bid
* The success of the United Bid will make the 2026 World Cup
the first to be hosted in three countries and the first since
2002 (South Korea and Japan) to be held in multiple nations.
* The three countries will share the responsibility of
hosting by staging 60 matches in the United States and 10 each
in Canada and Mexico.
* The 2026 tournament will be the first expanded tournament
featuring 48 teams, up from the current 32-team tournament.
* The final will be held at the MetLife Stadium in New
Jersey, home to the NFL's New York Giants and New York Jets.

The numbers
* The United Bid received 134 votes compared to 65 for
Morocco from members of the FIFA Congress. One member voted for
"neither bid."
* The members behind the United Bid pledged that a World Cup
in North America would generate an $11 billion profit.
* The United Bid also projected that a World Cup in North
American would generate more than $5 billion in short-term
economic activity, including the creation of 40,000 jobs and
more than $1 billion in incremental worker earnings for the
candidate host cities and countries.
* The United Bid projects more than 5.8 million tickets will
be sold, generating more than $2 billion in ticketing revenue.

Venues
* The United Bid has prospective stadiums situated across 23
candidate cities, from which 16 will be selected.
* The 17 U.S. candidate cities are Atlanta, Baltimore,
Boston, Cincinnati, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Kansas City, Los
Angeles, Miami, Nashville, New York/New Jersey, Orlando,
Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington.
* Canada (Edmonton, Montreal and Toronto) and Mexico
(Guadalajara, Mexico City and Monterrey) each have three
candidate cities.

Previous bids
1970 - Mexico was chosen ahead of the only other submitted
bid from Argentina. The tournament was the first World Cup
hosted in North America.
1986 - Mexico became the first nation to stage the
tournament twice after they replaced Colombia as the host
country when the latter dropped out for financial reasons. The
replacement host beat bids from Canada and the United States.
1994 - The United States beat out Brazil and Morocco for
hosting duties after one round of voting. The attendance of
nearly 3.6 million remains the highest in World Cup history.
2022 - The United States reached the fourth and final round
of voting but lost to Qatar in a 14-8 vote.

Favourable conditions
* Canada, Mexico, and the United States require no new
stadium construction to stage the 2026 World Cup.
* Each of the stadiums included in the proposal are already
built and have an average capacity of more than 68,000.
* Each country has the full support of its respective
national and local government leaders, as well as business,
civic, and sports champions.
* All candidate host cities have existing transportation,
accommodation, medical, technology, and other infrastructure
that meet or exceed the requirements outlined by FIFA.

(Compiled by Aditi Prakash in Bengaluru
Editing by Christian Radnedge)