The USA, Canada and Mexico will jointly host the next World Cup, so we may have some late nights ahead in Europe...
(Image credit: Getty Images)
The World Cup will expand from 32 teams to 48 for the first time when the USA, Mexico and Canada welcome the rest of the planet to their respective doorsteps for the 2026 World Cup.
That could pose headaches for the scheduling with TV audiences to serve all around the world - so what time can we expect games to kick off, and what time can we thus expect to be taking to our respective sofas and pubs?
Here's what we know so far about the scheduling and kick-off times for the upcoming 2026 World Cup.
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When will 2026 World Cup kick-off times be announced?
Although the match dates and venues for all 104 games have been announced, the exact kick-off times are yet to be announced by FIFA – and are not expected to be until after the final draw for the group stage has been made in late 2025.
There has been some suggestion that’s because FIFA want to try and allocate games to timeslots that maximise the potential global audience: if Poland are playing South Korea, to pick a particularly awkward hypothetical example, it might make sense to schedule that for a teatime kick-off US time to avoid it being played in the middle of the night in either country.
The 2014 World Cup featured games at 1pm, 5pm, 7pm and (for just one game) 10pm Brasilia time, which translated to 5pm, 9pm, 11pm and 2am in British summer time.
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The 2014 World Cup gives us one example to look at, but the North American time zones are several hours behind Brazil's (Image credit: Getty Images)
However, Brasilia time is only four hours behind the UK in the (northern hemisphere) summer; some games at the 2026 World Cup will be played in time zones that are eight hours behind UK time and nine behind much of Europe. That poses a real logistical challenge to FIFA, and may open up the possibility of earlier kick-off times.
If we're looking at previous examples in the US and Mexico: all of the games at Mexico 86 were played at either midday or 4pm local time, but there were of course only half as many games to fit in. USA 94 meanwhile had an 11:30am (Central time) kick-off time for a handful of games, which for US West Coast viewers was 9:30am and for UK viewers was 5:30pm.
The 2015 Women's World Cup in Canada made fewer concessions, with the earliest games kicking off at 2pm local time (7-9pm UK time, depending which part of Canada it was held in).
USA 94 included some morning kick-offs
With up to four timeslots to fill per day in the group stage thanks to the extended format, it would make sense to put games involving the three host nations and/or Central and South American countries in the late kick-offs.
Fixtures exclusively involving European and African countries would sit better in the earlier slots meanwhile, which would be evening in and around the Greenwich meridian.
That may not always be possible, however, and some inconvenient kick-off times are probably close to an inevitability: in 2014, for instance, Ivory Coast v Japan kicked off at 10pm Brasilia time, which was 10am Japanese time (not so bad) but 1am in the Ivory Coast (not great).
Get your time zone calculator bookmarked saved for winter 2025, is our advice.
Steven Chicken has been working as a football writer since 2009, taking in stints with Football365 and the Huddersfield Examiner. Steven still covers Huddersfield Town home and away for his own publication, WeAreTerriers.com. Steven is a two-time nominee for Regional Journalist of the Year at the prestigious British Sports Journalism Awards, making the shortlist in 2020 and 2023.
