2026 World Cup draw to be held at Kennedy Center, President Trump announces
U.S. President Donald Trump announced Friday that the 2026 men’s World Cup draw will take place Dec. 5 at the Kennedy Center, a performing arts venue in Washington, D.C.
Trump made the announcement flanked by FIFA president Gianni Infantino and U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance in the Oval Office.
The draw is the event at which all qualified teams learn their three group-stage opponents.
The Athletic reported in April that Las Vegas appeared to be the frontrunner to host the draw, but Washington, D.C. remained in contention if it made it easier for Trump to participate extensively.
Trump will almost certainly have a role in the event, which is both procedural and a spectacle. It typically includes musical performances and speeches before the teams are drawn, via sealed orbs, from pots into their World Cup groups.
The 2026 World Cup, which will be played across the U.S., Canada and Mexico, will kick off on June 11, but the draw is the first landmark occasion associated with the tournament.
“The Kennedy Center will give it a phenomenal kick-off,” Trump said at Friday’s news conference, “and we’ll be involved.”
FIFA also schedules various workshops, including for coaches and broadcasters, around the draw. Those will also take place in D.C., Infantino said Friday. Trump also indicated that FIFA officials would be able to “stay there for the big events, the big press conferences, and everything else.”
Alejandro Hutt, the director of the host city committee for Mexico’s Monterrey, had told ESPN in January that they and Canadian city Vancouver had been interested in hosting the draw before being told by FIFA they would not be doing so.
Last time the men’s World Cup took place in the U.S., 1994, the draw took place at the Las Vegas Convention Center, with Dick Clark hosting the event which included performances from Stevie Wonder, James Brown and Rod Stewart.
What happened at Friday’s news conference?
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Carlos Cordeiro, an Infantino advisor and senior advisor to the White House’s World Cup Task Force, were also present for the announcement.
The World Cup trophy stood on a desk in front of them, next to Trump. At one point, Infantino picked it up, handed it to Trump, and said: “This is for winners only. And since you are a winner, of course, you can (touch it) as well.”
Trump smiled, held the trophy, posed for photos, and asked: “Can I keep it?”
Trump later said he was “just sent a picture from someone who wants to be there very badly. He’s been very respectful of me and our country, but not so respectful of others.”
He then held up a picture of himself and Russian President Vladimir Putin, one week after the two met in Alaska about Russia’s war in Ukraine. (The meeting ended without a deal to end the war.)
Trump said that Putin, “I believe, will be coming (to the World Cup final, on July 19), depending on what happens. He may be coming, and he may not.”
(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Trump, after announcing the date and location of the draw, immediately pivoted to criticism of Washington D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser and promotion of his administration’s moves to exert control over the nation’s capital. He called D.C. a “crime-infested rat hole,” despite data showing that crime has declined in 2024 and 2025.
“Washington D.C. is a whole different place, and Gianni, I’m sure you’ll be happy to hear that too, actually,” Trump said. Infantino responded: “Oh yes.”
The Kennedy Center, which has been a D.C. institution since it opened in 1971, has been the subject of a Trump effort to remake the Center in his image. Trump said during Friday’s announcement that it could be called the “Trump Kennedy Center.”
Infantino later joked that “everything will start here, in Washington D.C., at the Kennedy Center — or the Trump Kennedy Center, we’ll see how it will be called — on the 5th of September at noon sharp.”
The Trump-Infantino bromance continues
Analysis by senior soccer writer Adam Crafton
For much of this year, FIFA has been engaged in extensive discussions and negotiations with Las Vegas to repeat the draw from the last time the World Cup came to the U.S. in 1994.
The discussions were so advanced that suites were held back by authorities across different resorts in Vegas for the first week of December even until recent weeks, as FIFA continued its negotiations with various venues in Vegas, including the Grand Garden Arena. Vegas was the clear preference of many host city executives, who had their eyes on an opportunity to schmooze prospective sponsors in Sin City and make a big national impact with a major event in Vegas.
(Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
However, the spectre of D.C., which is not a World Cup host city, has always loomed in the background, as reported by The Athletic in April, because FIFA has always been determined to make it as easy as possible for Trump to be involved in the draw.
When it was the Club World Cup draw in Miami last year, following his re-election but before beginning his second term, Trump sent only a video message of support. This time, Infantino will want him to be front and center — just as he was when Premier League club Chelsea lifted the Club World Cup at MetLife Stadium in July.
A venue in D.C. makes that all the easier, and this is the bromance that shows no signs of letting up.
How does the World Cup draw work?
The draw determines the exact split of the 48 qualified nations into 12 groups of four for the first stage of the World Cup.
Before the draw, the 48 teams will be allocated evenly into four ‘pots’, according to the most up-to-date FIFA rankings. Pot 1 will contain the U.S., Canada and Mexico, who qualify for the tournament automatically as host nations, and the next highest-ranked nine teams. That continues across Pot 2 and Pot 3, with Pot 4 containing the 12 lowest-ranked teams. Each group will contain one country from each pot.
It has already been confirmed that the first game of the 2026 World Cup will take place at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City on June 11, meaning Mexico has been automatically placed in Group A. Canada will play the second match and has been placed in Group B, while the U.S. will play the third match and is in Group D. Those games will be the only ones on June 12.
At the time of the draw, 42 of the 48 teams competing at the World Cup will be known. Four qualifiers from Europe and two from the rest of the world will be determined via a set of playoffs in March 2026, which will take place in the host nations. In previous years, placeholders have been used in Pot 4 to represent spots which will be decided by a playoff yet to take place.
The match schedule — complete with dates, kickoff times and game locations — is typically released soon after the draw. A sign behind Trump at the news conference stated the draw will begin at 12pm ET (9am PT; 5pm GMT).
(Top photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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