Mexico's FootGolf rise helped earn 2026 World Cup hosting rights

Mexico’s place on FootGolf’s world stage rested on a long runway, not a one-off bid. The sport’s Mexican roots stretched back to 2005 under the Fut-Golf name, the trademark was registered in 2009, and by the time Acapulco was awarded the 2026 World Championship, the country had already built the kind of structure that turns a pastime into a host nation.

The Mexican FootGolf Federation was founded in Monterrey in 2012 with support from the American FootGolf League, and that same year Mexico formed its first national team and played in the first World FootGolf Championship in Hungary. That put Mexico among the founding countries in the sport’s international era, and it has been part of every FIFG World Cup cycle since. FIFG, founded on June 3, 2012 near Budapest during that first World Cup, recognizes only one exclusive national member per country, which makes Mexico’s long-running status even more telling.

The domestic footprint grew in layers. Mexico is divided into six FootGolf regions, with eight active leagues and 10 more in development. The official host material tracks milestones from the first national league and the Mexican circuit to televised majors, a Super Cup and the 2025 North American Cup. FootGolf México says tournaments have been played across Acapulco, Cancún, CDMX, Cuernavaca, Edo. de México, Guadalajara, León, Manzanillo, Mazatlán, Monterrey, Puebla, Torreón, Vallarta, Veracruz and Tlaxcala, a spread that gave the federation a national calendar instead of a single-city scene.

That infrastructure helped Acapulco land the sport’s biggest event. The 2026 World Championship was scheduled for May 27 to June 7 and drew 1,240 players and 64 teams, split between an Individual World Championship from May 27 to June 1 and a Team World Championship from June 2 to June 7. The field included Men, Senior Men, Senior Men+ and Women, and the event followed previous championships in Hungary in 2012, Argentina in 2016, Morocco in 2018 and the United States in 2023.

By then, the event had already been officially announced, backed by FIFG and organized by the Mexican federation. The championship website went live in November 2025, a milestone in the buildup, and Televisa produced the event with 36 hours of broadcasting. Mexico’s case for hosting was made years earlier, in the leagues, the regions and the national team that came before Acapulco.