FIFA expands the 2026 Series as part of a push to create year‑round football content.
FIFA has once again expanded one of its tournaments, this time the FIFA Series for 2026, which will feature 48 national teams across 12 mini-tournaments hosted by 11 member associations.
The governing body announced the full line-up of hosts and group compositions on January 19, with nine men’s groups and three women’s groups spanning all six confederations. Hosts include Australia, Indonesia, Rwanda and Uzbekistan on the men’s side, with women’s events taking place in Brazil, Côte d’Ivoire and Thailand.
All matches will be broadcast globally, with FIFA pushing a narrative that the competition is development-focused which gives national teams outside the traditional elite more regular access to international fixtures.
Participants range from established teams such as Australia and Brazil to lower ranked nations including the US Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands.
One way FIFA is attempting to present the tournament as developmental is by including teams that have already qualified for the 2026 World Cup, including Australia, Cabo Verde, Curaçao, New Zealand and Uzbekistan.
However, given FIFA’s recent trend of launching new competitions and expanding existing ones, the move also fits within a broader strategy to change how the organisation operates commercially.
FIFA’s year-round calendar
The FIFA Series is launching in one of the most commercially significant years in FIFA’s history.
In 2026 alone, FIFA will stage the expanded men’s World Cup across the US, Canada and Mexico, while also running qualification tournaments for the 2027 Women’s World Cup. It will launch the new FIFA Women’s Champions Cup in London and host the U-20 and U-17 Women’s World Cups in Poland and Morocco, respectively.
Qatar will once again stage the now-annually expanded U-17 men’s World Cup, while the Intercontinental Cup continues as FIFA’s global club championship, following last year’s expansion of the men’s Club World Cup and the planned launch of the Women’s Club World Cup in 2028.
FIFA’s calendar wasn’t always this crowded, in fact, for much of its history, the organisation staged only a handful of events each year, with the men’s World Cup acting as its main commercial engine.
The real expansion has come over the past two decades, as FIFA has steadily added youth tournaments, women’s competitions and new club events, changing itself from an occasional tournament organiser into a year‑round content producer.
More tournaments mean more broadcast inventory, more sponsor activation windows and more licensing opportunities across markets. Rather than generating the bulk of its revenue during a single tournament window, FIFA is increasingly building continuous commercial touchpoints throughout the year.
However, the expansion of FIFA’s events calendar has not been without scrutiny. Player unions, clubs and confederations have repeatedly raised concerns about workload, travel demands and injury risk, warning commercial growth is coming at the expense of player welfare.
During a press conference in 2025 at Bodymoor Heath Training Ground, organised by Aston Villa and Betano to celebrate a new partnership, midfielder John McGinn shared his thoughts on the competition and the increasing number of games from various tournaments.
“I think there is a part of it that’s getting a little bit out of hand… I mean, we’re obviously very fortunate to be well paid for doing a job we absolutely love. No one’s getting away from that,” he said at the time.
“At the end of the season, you just want to go right, hands up. But now the teams in that club World Cup, they’re not going to have any time to do that. So, people’s health is the most important thing.”
