Club World Cup has critics putting heat on North America as World Cup host, but they should cool it

It is forecast to be 85 degrees and sunny at kickoff Sunday for the FIFA Club World Cup final between dominant Paris Saint-Germain and an ascendant Chelsea squad that will spend the hours in advance attempting to conceive a means to prevail where Liverpool, Arsenal, Inter Milan, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid failed — most of them miserably — over the past several months.

It seemed important to get a little soccer into that sentence, because I went to school to become a sports journalist, not a meteorologist, and yet weather has been the principal obsession of so many in and around this tournament (and the much, much bigger one that will follow, the 2026 FIFA World Cup).

The fitness of North America, principally the U.S., to stage the world's most popular sporting event next summer has become the subject of myriad media reports.

"Get set for a bumpy ride next summer," posted ESPN's Mark Ogden on Twitter, linking to an article that compared the summer weather in the United States to that of Qatar, even though capital city Doha reached a high of 105 Saturday and is facing nine consecutive days of triple-digit temperatures. (Probably more, but that's the limit of the weather app on my iPhone).

Perhaps foremost among those who've been obsessed with the climate across the United States has been Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca, who said after a Blues victory against Benfica on the final Saturday of June that was delayed by a thunderstorm: "It's already eight, nine games that they suspended here. I think it's a joke... that probably means this is not the right place to do this competition."

As he spoke, Europe was in the midst of a catastrophic heat wave accompanied by dangerous thunderstorms that impacted France and Spain. Earlier this month, the Acropolis landmark in Greece was forced to close because of temperatures that reached more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and parts of the United Kingdom were under a health advisory as the thermometer commonly topped the 90-degree mark. What place on this planet is immune from weather concerns and still has the capacity to stage an event of this magnitude?

It is obvious what is happening, and it's not for the first time. The allegedly dubious fitness of the United States to conduct the 1994 World Cup was a constant complaint from participants elsewhere, principally Europe, but then it was primarily because the nation had no major professional league and only episodic interest in the sport.

The United States responded by delivering the most successful World Cup in history. By far. The total attendance for the event was 3.57 million, an average of 68,626 per game. The next-largest audiences, both in total and average, were at Brazil 2014, which recorded crowds of 3.45 million overall and 53,772 on average, but that World Cup had eight more teams and a dozen more games.

Those records from 30 years ago will be Bob Beamoned in 2026, with the tournament expanding to 48 participants, the schedule to 104 games and the stadiums to an average capacity of 69,386. It is conceivable the total attendance for 2026 will be double the number for any previous World Cup.

MORE: PSG vs. Chelsea all-time head to head | Predicted lineups, team news for final

The U.S. now is one of the most soccer-saturated nations on Earth. In addition to the exponential growth of Major League Soccer, which began in 1996 and now features 30 teams with average attendance ranking in the top 10 of global soccer leagues, and the NWSL, which has grown to 16 teams in less than 15 years, soccer fans in the States easily can watch televised games from England, Spain, Germany and Italy, as well as the most popular league on American TV: LigaMX of Mexico. This summer has included games from the Club World Cup, the CONCACAF Gold Cup and the Women's Euro 2025 tournament.

The criticisms of North America's fitness as a World Cup host, as a proper footballing nation, are starting to wear on some of the game's prominent U.S. voices, including game analyst Stu Holden, who will call the biggest 2026 matches for Fox Sports. In response to criticism by Chelsea midfielder Enzo Fernandez, who called playing in the New Jersey heat "dangerous", Holden posted to social media a list of temperature readings in various European cities that all were in the mid- to upper-80s — in the evening hours.

"Where do you want to play it, Enzo?" Holden asked. "Give me a break."

What works against the United States that might not be an issue elsewhere is time zones. Games that could be scheduled for cooler evenings are mandated by FIFA to be contested through the afternoons, as the PSG-Chelsea game will be, because it's most advantageous for European television broadcasts. That's not unreasonable; it's where the largest and most engaged audiences for this sport reside. It's business.

There have been significant changes to the rules, though, to mitigate heat-related concerns. Teams now are allowed five substitutes per game, as opposed to three even a decade ago. And when temperatures reach a particular level, teams are permitted to take a hydration break once per half. There has been some contention the heat impacted the level of play, but that's hard to take seriously given the beautiful soccer Chelsea and (especially) PSG delivered in reaching the final.

The nature of the U.S. operation is significantly different than in 1994. There is only one Florida venue, Miami, which has constructed a roof over its seating area to lessen the impact of the persistent sunshine. The other four southern U.S. cities selected have indoor stadiums. Arsene Wenger, FIFA's chief of global football development, said the World Cup schedule may be arranged so those venues are deployed during day periods likely to be hotter.

"The heat in some games was a problem," Wenger said at a Club World Cup press conference Thursday. "We tried to combat that with cooling breaks and watering the pitches during breaks. We learned a lot on that front."

Jurgen Klinsmann, who also spoke as a member of the tournament's technical committee, coached Germany at the 2006 World Cup and the United States at Brazil in 2014. He has primarily lived in the U.S. for most of the past few decades.

"A tournament is always about how to manage obstacles," Klinsmann said. "A tournament is a marathon. And I think for these clubs that came out here for the tournament, it was a huge learning curve.

"You have to deal with the circumstances. If you want to go win a World Cup in Qatar, you have to win in Qatar. This is your job: the job is going wherever is chosen to play the next tournament and deal with those circumstances."

In 1994, Klinsmann was the star striker for Germany's reigning World Cup champions, and his team was assigned a final group game against South Korea in Dallas. I was in the audience at the Cotton Bowl as temperatures were reported to reach 120 degrees on the field. It was not much cooler in the stands, as organizers ignorantly feared what they'd read about soccer fans and installed chain-link fencing in front of the first row that only intensified the heat.

Klinsmann scored two goals in Germany's 3-2 victory. I had a glorious spectating experience at my first World Cup game — even though the concession stands, operating long before bottled water became a thing, ran out of H20. 

There will be more games in the Dallas area in 2026: nine, the most of any city, including one of the semifinals. All of them, if the weather demands are as expected, will be played in air conditioning.