Get ready for the FIFA World Cup 2026 opening ceremony with our complete guide to dates, start time, venues, star performers and how to watch the live streaming from anywhere in the world.

Thousands of fans are threatening to boycott the opening match of the World Cup amid a dispute over stadium access. Owners of executive boxes at the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City say they have faced severe restrictions on selling their seats and supplying food and drinks to those attending the tournament opener between Mexico and South Africa and subsequent matches.

The opening day of the FIFA World Cup has never been just about football, but for 2026, organisers are throwing out the traditional playbook entirely. Instead of a singular grand curtain-raiser, this edition stretches the spectacle across three host nations,

President Claudia Sheinbaum officially presented the Mexican national flag to El Tri at the CAR facility in Mexico City, with goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa receiving the colors just three days before Mexico's World Cup opener against South Africa.

A dozen patients from Cook Children's will be part of the opening ceremony at the first FIFA World Cup​ match at Dallas Stadium on Sunday between Japan and the Netherlands.

MILAN (AP) — The World Cup will feature an unprecedented trio of star-studded opening ceremonies in the host nations, the United States, Canada and Mexico, created by the Italian producer behind the opening ceremony for this year’s Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dozens of mayors and other city leaders gathered in the ballroom of a Washington hotel on a snowy January morning this year gripped by anger and anxiety about the federal government's increasingly aggressive immigration enforcement operation that included the killings of two U.

The new pre-match ceremony will also include extra-large country flag banners and the players will enter the pitch through a dedicated arch.