The 2026 FIFA World Cup will be one of the most complex global events organizations have faced in years.
Hosted across 16 cities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, the tournament will bring millions of travelers, heightened geopolitical tension, cyber threats, extreme weather exposure, transportation strain, and elevated operational risk across North America. In a recent Everbridge webinar, The road to 2026: Security, travel, and threat intelligence for the world’s biggest football tournament prepare, experts in risk intelligence, meteorology, and emergency management explored what security, resilience, operations, and business continuity leaders should be preparing for now.
Hosted by Adam DeLuca, Director of Risk Intelligence at Everbridge, the session featured Everbridge experts Christie Majoros, Regional Analyst, North America; Christian Robles, Regional Analyst, Latin America; and Caitlyn Gillespie, Chief of Meteorology, alongside Dr. Crystal McGlover, Emergency Manager for the City of Inglewood, and Soraya Sutherlin, Disaster Management Area Coordinator for Los Angeles County.
Their message was consistent throughout the discussion: organizations cannot treat the World Cup as simply a sporting event. It is a distributed operational risk environment that requires real-time visibility, coordinated communications, and flexible response planning.
A tournament spread across three countries creates new operational challenges
Unlike previous tournaments concentrated in a single country, World Cup 2026 will span three nations with different security environments, border requirements, transportation systems, and emergency management structures. Majoros emphasized that travel itself may become one of the biggest operational stress points.
“This is going to draw millions of people from all over the world traveling within a tight timeframe,” she said during the webinar. “Entry into one country is not entry into all three countries.”
Travelers moving between host cities may encounter different visa requirements, Real ID and passport enforcement, airport congestion, transportation delays, border screening complications, language barriers, and limited accommodation availability. Organizations supporting traveling employees, executives, vendors, or customers should prepare for disruption as a baseline operating condition rather than the exception.
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Geopolitical tensions could drive protests and unrest
The tournament will take place amid ongoing geopolitical instability and political polarization across multiple regions. Majoros noted that unresolved conflicts involving Iran, Russia, Ukraine, and tensions surrounding immigration enforcement in the United States could elevate protest risks during the event.
“The political climate is generally polarized,” she explained. “The tensions are high.”
While stadiums themselves will likely maintain extensive security perimeters, she warned that surrounding public spaces may present greater exposure, including fan zones, public viewing areas, parks, entertainment districts, transit hubs, and hospitality venues.
“There are a lot of spillover public spaces where these games will take place,” Majoros said. “There’s just not going to be the type of security there is for official events.”
For security, resilience, operations, and travel risk teams, situational awareness cannot stop at the venue perimeter.
Cartel violence in Mexico remains a logistics concern
Christian Robles, Regional Analyst for Latin America at Everbridge, addressed concerns surrounding cartel violence in Mexico, particularly after recent instability linked to criminal leadership disputes. He assessed that direct attacks on tournament venues remain unlikely.
“Threats to stadiums are likely going to be minimal,” he said.
Instead, organizations should focus on operational disruption risks affecting surrounding infrastructure and transportation networks.
“What it will do is disrupt logistics and travel, especially overland travel,” Robles explained.
Potential impacts include highway blockades, delayed ground transportation, regional mobility disruptions, security force operations affecting traffic flows, and supply chain interruptions. Robles also noted that criminal organizations generally avoid the kind of visibility and law enforcement response that attacks on international sporting venues would trigger.
Hybrid cyber threats will target distracted travelers
One of the most important themes discussed during the webinar was the rise of hybrid cyber threats that combine physical interaction with digital compromise. Robles highlighted several likely attack methods expected around fan zones, hotels, transportation hubs, and crowded public areas, including rogue Wi-Fi networks, fake QR codes, fraudulent payment systems, social engineering scams, and credential theft operations.
“These threats mix social engineering in person with technical approaches,” Robles said.
Attackers frequently exploit urgency and confusion during large-scale events. A traveler struggling with connectivity or searching for information may unknowingly connect to a malicious network or scan a compromised QR code.
Robles advised organizations and travelers to avoid unknown public Wi-Fi networks, verify QR codes directly with venue or hotel staff, use VPNs and multi-factor authentication, treat unsolicited assistance cautiously, and reinforce traveler cyber awareness training before deployment.
“If there’s a sense of urgency being pushed upon you, be suspicious of that,” he warned.
Extreme heat may become the defining operational challenge
Caitlyn Gillespie, Chief of Meteorology at Everbridge, outlined why weather, particularly heat, may become one of the tournament’s most disruptive operational risks.
“Heat is no longer a background risk,” Gillespie said. “It’s a primary operational challenge.”
Forecast models indicate above-normal temperatures across much of North America during the tournament window, especially across southern U.S. host cities, northern and central Mexico, major urban population centers, and areas vulnerable to wildfire smoke.
Cities including Dallas, Houston, Miami, Monterrey, and Mexico City may experience dangerous heat index values exceeding 105°F to 110°F.
Gillespie emphasized that the larger issue is compound risk, with multiple disruptions occurring simultaneously.
“What we’re really planning for is a compound risk environment,” she explained. “Multiple hazards interacting all at the same time.”
In addition to heat exposure, organizations may need to prepare for severe thunderstorms, flooding, tropical weather activity, wildfire smoke impacts, air quality degradation, transportation interruptions, and energy grid strain. For organizations operating across multiple host cities, weather monitoring and response coordination will need to become real-time operational capabilities rather than static planning exercises.
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Crowd safety risks extend beyond the stadium
Although FIFA safety standards significantly reduce the likelihood of major stampedes inside official venues, Robles warned that crowd surge risks still exist outside controlled areas. He pointed to incidents during recent regional tournaments where unmanaged crowd movement created injuries and operational disruption.
“If there are sudden crowd surges or people trying to push through gated areas, that’s a big risk,” Robles said.
FIFA regulations requiring all-seater stadiums, wider exits, and coordinated security staffing reduce risks inside venues. However, unofficial gathering spaces remain less controlled and potentially more vulnerable to panic behavior or overcrowding.
Communication coordination is becoming a core operational resilience capability
Few organizations understand complex event coordination better than emergency management teams in Los Angeles County and the City of Inglewood, which are preparing not only for the World Cup, but also future Super Bowls and the 2028 Olympic Games.
Local leaders are also building on lessons and partnerships developed during previous large-scale events hosted in the region.
Dr. Crystal McGlover, Emergency Manager for the City of Inglewood, emphasized the importance of early planning, multi-agency coordination, shared operating pictures, clear communications structures, and cross-jurisdictional partnerships.
“Coordination is key,” McGlover explained. “Without coordination, information is going to be siloed.”
Soraya Sutherlin, Disaster Management Area Coordinator for Los Angeles County, stressed that communications planning now extends far beyond traditional emergency alerts.
“We want to ensure we have consistent messaging across the region,” Sutherlin said.
That includes multilingual communications, accessibility planning, social media coordination, rumor control, cross-agency messaging approval, and public information synchronization. Sutherlin also discussed the importance of exercises and simulations to identify communication gaps before the event begins.
“You’ll never be able to replicate a real-life event,” she said. “But what you do learn from exercising is incredibly valuable.”
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Large-scale event resilience starts long before kickoff
One of the clearest lessons from the webinar was that resilience during the World Cup will depend heavily on preparation conducted months in advance. The organizations best positioned to operate successfully during the tournament will likely be those that build communication redundancies, conduct exercises and simulations, strengthen public-private partnerships, prepare travelers in advance, monitor threats continuously, develop flexible response playbooks, and coordinate across jurisdictions and stakeholders.
For security, resilience, operations, travel, and business continuity leaders, World Cup 2026 represents more than a major event. It is a large-scale stress test of organizational preparedness, coordination, communications, and decision-making under rapidly changing conditions.
