Global soccer's governing body FIFA has taken its media rights tender process covering the next two World Cups – one men's and one women's – to the Indian subcontinent.
FIFA has launched two separate processes, one covering rights to the 2026 and 2030 men's World Cups, and one for the 2027 Women's World Cup (WWC).
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Next year's men's tournament will take place in Mexico, the US, and Canada, while the 2030 event will be predominantly staged across Spain, Morocco, and Portugal, with three games to take place in South America. The 2027 WWC, meanwhile, will be hosted by Brazil.
The tenders stretch across India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, with none of these nations having qualified for the 2026 tournament.
For the last men's World Cup, held in Qatar in 2022, the Viacom18 broadcaster (now a part of the JioStar group) provided coverage across the subcontinent through a tie-up with the Infront media rights agency, which acted as FIFA's distributor in that region.
For the 2023 WWC in Australia and New Zealand, meanwhile, the 1Stadia firm ended up acquiring subcontinent rights, and then selling them on to a range of broadcasters, including India's state-owned broadcaster Doordarshan.
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By GlobalDataThe 2027 WWC will be held in Brazil, marking the first time South America hosts that event.
The means of qualifying for that tournament amongst Asian teams will be the AFC Women's Asian Cup next March.
Broadcasters and media groups have until September 2 at 10am Central European Time to submit bids for either set of rights, while the relevant tender documents can be requested from either fwc26-media-rights@fifa.org (for the men's tournaments) or fwwc2027-media-rights@fifa.org for the women's event.
The Asian Football Confederation's qualifying campaign for the 2026 World Cup began in November 2023, and no subcontinent teams made it as far as the third round of the qualifying process.
In terms of recently-issued FIFA tenders, early June saw the governing body take its 2027 WWC rights process to Canada, one of women's soccer's traditional powerhouse markets.
The deadline for bids in that market was July 10.
In late May, meanwhile, Deutsche Telekom, the German telecommunications giant, unveiled a wide-ranging package of FIFA rights, including games from both the 2026 and 2027 tournaments.
