Mexico denies FIFA hotel reservation cancellations for World Cup

Mexico , through its representative to FIFA, Gabriela Cuevas , denied on Thursday that the governing body had cancelled hotel reservations in the Mexican capital ahead of the 2026 World Cup and said that it had only "released" rooms that had been blocked as a precaution.

The clarification comes after the Mexico City Hotel Association told local media that FIFA had canceled around 800 of the 2,000 rooms it had reserved in the capital, which would represent around 40% of its initial block for the tournament. According to Cuevas, what happened is a normal procedure in the organization of the event.

Cuevas said the organization had blocked rooms for various groups associated with the tournament for about two years, but the deadline to decide whether to keep those reservations expired recently.

"What FIFA did was not that it canceled the reservations, it was that it released the ones it had made," he said

The Mexican representative assured that the international interest in attending the World Cup remains high and stressed that two of the four matches with the highest demand in the recent ticket sales phase correspond to Mexican venues.

"Of the four most attractive matches for people around the world, two were in our country. One in Mexico City , one in the city of Guadalajara," he said, referring to the opening match between Mexico and South Africa on June 11 and the match between Uruguay and Spain on June 26. Cuevas ruled out that there is a tourism problem ahead of the tournament and assured that the country maintains record figures in the sector.

"Mexico, as our president says, is in fashion and is very fashionable for the World Cup . Don't worry about the rooms; rather here I would recommend that you book now that some have been released, because surely soon they will be occupied," he concluded.