Soccer’s global governing body FIFA has opened media rights tenders across the Caribbean, Greece, and Cyprus, for its men’s World Cups in 2026 and 2030.
Both processes went live yesterday (March 26), with the tenders in Cyprus and Greece having a deadline of April 30, and the Caribbean process (incorporating 29 territories overall) having a deadline of May 6. The invitation to tender documents are available from cyprus-media-rights@fifa.org, greece-media-rights@fifa.org, and caribbean-media-rights@fifa.org.
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The 2026 men’s soccer tournament will take place across Mexico, the US, and Canada, and due to its expansion in size from previous editions – it will involve 48 teams as opposed to 32 in 2022 – Caribbean and European nations will all have a better chance of qualifying. In 2030, meanwhile, the FIFA World Cup will for the most part be held across Spain, Portugal, and Morocco, with one game each to then take place in Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
Action from the 2022 World Cup Qatar was covered in Greece by free-to-air (FTA) commercial broadcaster Antenna TV, and in Cyprus by the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation.
In the Caribbean, meanwhile, DirecTV was the main broadcaster, through a contract that also covered the 2018 tournament. That contract had a total reported value, at the time, of $20 million.
Neither Greece nor Cyprus qualified for Qatar 2022, and none of the Caribbean nations were present at the tournament either.
Cyprus’ qualifying campaign for next year’s World Cup got underway earlier this month, while Greece begin theirs in September.
For the Caribbean, meanwhile, that region – alongside Central America – had its qualifying campaign begin last March, and run through until November this year, with the second round stage currently underway.
In terms of recent FIFA media rights activity covering the men’s World Cup, earlier this month the governing body launched tenders covering the next two editions of the tournament, in Laos, Malaysia, and Thailand.
The deadline for bid submissions is April 1 at 10 am Central European Time, with the invitation to tender (ITT) documents available through the following contact points – laos-media-rights@fifa.org, malaysia-media-rights@fifa.org, and thailand-media-rights@fifa.org.
In mid-February, meanwhile, FIFA took media rights processes covering the 2026 and 2030 World Cups to nine European markets – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, and Ukraine.
As for completed rights deals, Spanish public-service broadcaster RTVE and sports rights agency Mediapro unveiled an agreement for the 2026 tournament last week, reportedly bidding €55 million ($60.1 million) to secure the package.
