BY BEATRICE  BALL’OCKEY | SPORTS REPORTER

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is coming to North America with games being held across Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. While some are completely unaware of this fact, one expert claims this event is quite the “big deal.”

Barry Innett, executive director of public relations at FIFA, said he believes the buzz surrounding the World Cup is starting to ramp up at an exciting pace. 

“It’s a pretty big deal. My dad’s friend’s coworker was mentioning it in passing at one point so the word of mouth is pretty good,” said Innett. “We also just made a deal with PLAYMOBIL and they’re going to make us toy versions of the players whose names I don’t know so that’s pretty cool right?”

The Dilly Dally spoke with FIFA fans on the street—or at least people we could find wearing shirts that resembled soccer jerseys—to ask about how they’re preparing for what FIFA is calling “the biggest event of the summer besides everything else.” 

“I’m honestly not sure when it starts but when it does it’ll be pretty cool to hear about after it ends,” said one fan in a shirt with the number nine on it. 

“I’m from England so what you call soccer we call football and I believe that is all I have to say about that,” said one woman from England. 

“I heard that they made a deal with PLAYMOBIL so I’m pretty darn excited to get my grubby little hands on one of those figures,” said a man wearing a jersey with his actual last name on it. 

While the FIFA games are set to take place June 11 to July 19, the live-action Moana remake is set to release on July 10 so many, if not all, will be occupied. 

In Toronto, the games are set to be held in the newly renovated BMO Field with an additional 17,756 temporary seats having been added, increasing the stadium’s total capacity to 45,736.

Joe Schmoe, head of construction on the expansion project, said the additions are as stable as they will ever be.

“It’s really unclear right now how many of the new seats are going to disintegrate as soon as they are sat in but that’s not my circus and certainly not my monkeys,” said Schmoe. “My advice would be not to sit in any of the newly added seats or anywhere else in the stadium as once it reaches the ‘capacity’ we said it could hold it will fall into the ground and disappear
forever.”