The 76th FIFA Congress convened at the Vancouver Convention Centre on Thursday 30 April 2026 with roughly 1,600 delegates from 211 member associations. The roll call recorded one absence: Iran. Gianni Infantino addressed the floor: 'Iran will be participating at the FIFA World Cup 2026, and of course, Iran will play in the United States' 1. He spoke to an empty Iranian chair. He also announced his candidacy for a fourth FIFA presidential term, with elections scheduled for March 2027 in Morocco, and FIFA projected $13.1 billion in revenue from the 48-team tournament.
The Congress had been flagged as ceremonial on the Iran file 15 days out , with the agenda still unpublished as the date approached. Pearson on Wednesday changed what 'ceremonial' meant. The absence Infantino addressed was no longer an institutional formality but the consequence of Canada's IRGC vetting executed at a port of entry the day before. The session's optics, intended to ratify Iran's place in the 48-team draw, instead documented its enforced exclusion from the room where that ratification was supposed to be witnessed.
The 211-association roll call also held the on-stage confrontation between the Palestinian and Israeli federations. The Vancouver session therefore sat across two unresolved files at once: Iran's border vulnerability eight weeks before the opener, and an arbitration appeal the PFA had filed at CAS ten days earlier. Neither was on the published agenda. Both shaped the room.
