The 2026 FIFA World Cup, the most geographically dispersed edition in the tournament’s 96-year history, has required a staggering level of travel from the body’s top leader — a new analysis from the Associated Press finds that FIFA President Gianni Infantino has accumulated nearly 60,000 miles of flight time across more than 100 hours aloft during the tournament, a distance large enough to circle the Earth two and a half times.
Hosted across 16 cities, three North American countries and four separate time zones, the 2026 tournament will wrap up Sunday with the final match in New Jersey, where either Argentina or Spain will claim the world championship. To map the full scope of Infantino’s travel during the tournament, AP reporters cross-referenced private flight logs for the jet he has used in recent years, on-the-ground photos from AP photojournalists, and public social media posts shared by both FIFA and Infantino himself on Instagram.
The Gulfstream G650 jet used for all of Infantino’s tournament travel is owned by the Qatari government and operated by the private charter division of Qatar Airways, which is an official sponsor of the 2026 World Cup. According to data from flight tracking service FlightAware, the aircraft has averaged more than one flight per day since Infantino’s pre-tournament journey from Los Angeles to Mexico City on June 9, with multiple days seeing three or more separate takeoffs and landings.
Infantino’s itinerary stretched far beyond match attendance, too. He made stops in New York for a live interview on Fox & Friends, traveled to Miami for a global FIFA summit that brought together representatives from the governing body’s 211 member associations, and even made a round-trip detour to Doha to attend the funeral of Qatar’s former emir, returning to North America in time for the tournament’s semifinal round. FIFA declined multiple requests for comment from the AP regarding Infantino’s travel schedule and private jet arrangements.
A breakdown of the travel numbers reveals the unprecedented scope of the journey. By the eve of Sunday’s final, Infantino had already attended 43 of the tournament’s record 104 matches, and he has visited all 16 host stadiums at least once — with Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium, where he attended five games, topping his list of most-visited venues. Thirteen days during the tournament saw Infantino attend two matches, often held at venues hundreds of miles apart. The jet has used 21 different airports across North America, leaning on major international airports in host cities most of the time, but occasionally using smaller general aviation airports for quicker access, including Atlanta’s Fulton County Executive Airport and Miami’s Opa Locka Executive Airport. Through the semifinal round, the jet had already made 23 international border crossings between the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
Excluding the 29 hours of travel for the Doha funeral detour and empty repositioning flights, the Gulfstream has logged 115 total flight hours during the tournament — the equivalent of five full straight days in the air, or enough for a commercial airliner to fly from New York to Los Angeles 20 times. The longest single flight (excluding the Doha trip) clocked in at 5 hours and 44 minutes, a journey from Miami to Seattle for the June 15 Belgium-Egypt match — a duration equal to three full World Cup matches from kickoff to final whistle. The shortest flight was just 28 minutes, a quick hop from Seattle to Vancouver on July 6, about the length of a commercial broadcast episode of a sitcom like *Friends* including advertisements. That day, Infantino attended the U.S.-Belgium match in Seattle before moving on to watch Switzerland face Colombia in Vancouver the next morning.
By the AP’s calculation, the jet traveled 59,281 miles during the core tournament, excluding the Doha funeral trip. That total is greater than the combined distance of a round-trip flight from New York to Singapore, a round-trip from Los Angeles to Doha, and a round-trip from London to Perth, Australia. The busiest single day for travel was June 26, when the jet covered 5,772 miles: it began with an early morning flight from Miami to Dallas, flew on to Seattle for Infantino to attend the Egypt-Iran match, then departed Seattle late that night for an overnight flight back to Miami, where Infantino watched Colombia take on Portugal the next morning. The only scheduled match Infantino missed was the third-place match between England and France, when thunderstorms across the New York City region grounded all outbound flights from the area Saturday, per Federal Aviation Administration records.
The massive travel footprint comes amid growing scrutiny of the 2026 World Cup’s carbon footprint. FIFA has publicly committed to cutting carbon emissions from World Cup operations and related activities by 50% by 2030, and aims to reach net-zero emissions by 2040, pledges that are laid out in the organization’s 2026 World Cup sustainability and human rights strategy. However, climate researchers and environmental advocacy groups have warned that the expanded three-nation format, which requires extensive air travel for teams, fans, officials and other event staff, will likely produce more greenhouse gas emissions than any previous World Cup in history, making it the most carbon-intensive tournament to date.
Associated Press journalist Graham Dunbar in Geneva, Switzerland contributed reporting to this analysis.