ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - While St. Louis will not host matches during the 2026 FIFA World Cup when it comes to North America, the city could still have a huge role in the tournament.
FIFA released a preliminary list of base camp cities on Wednesday, with 24 sites as potential home base camp sites during the tournament, including Saint Louis University in St. Louis.
Each location would be connected to a specific hotel for the teams, with the Magnolia Hotel St. Louis set to serve in that role.
The base camps will be where the teams stay and train and where players, staff and officials will spend the majority of their time during the group stage.
St. Louis is among one of nine cities to be listed as a base camp site for the World Cup despite not being slated to host a match in 2026, joining Chattanooga, Cincinnati, Green Bay, Louisville, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, Irvine (CA) and Westfield (Indiana).
"Even if a city is not staging matches, a participating team coming to stay creates a strong personal bond with the competition for people locally. It will see them adopt their guests as a second team during the tournament, thereby connecting even more people to the FIFA World Cup." said Heimo Schirgi, Chief Operating Officer World Cup.
Across the state in Kansas City, Missouri, which is set to have six FIFA World Cup matches in 2026, including a quarterfinal match, the city could also serve as a home base camp for three national teams.
The Kansas City Current’s Training Facility in Riverside Missouri, Sporting Kansas City's Training Center in Kansas City, Kansas, and the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas were listed as the three potential base camp sites in the area.
A total of 48 base camps will be needed to represent the number of nations that will participate in the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The 2026 World Cup will see an expansion from 32 to 48 in 2026.
Specific teams have not yet been assigned to specific base camps since only three countries have qualified for the 2026 FIFA World Cup at the moment: host nations USA, Canada, and Mexico.
Currently, UEFA have not yet begun their FIFA World Cup qualification process since the 2024 Euros will begin Friday, CONMEBOL World Cup Qualification is on temporary hiatus as the 2024 Copa America is set to begin on June 20, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) just recently wrapped up the second round of their qualification process, while the first round of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) World Cup qualifiers is not scheduled to finish until October 2025 and CONCACAF World Cup Qualifiers first round will not resume until June 2025.
Teams will formally submit the desired selection for their base camp location of choice in late 2025.