On February 19, Special Olympics, Special Olympics France and the Special Olympics Unified Football World Cup Paris 2026 The local organizing committee welcomed more than 200 guests and partners to the historic Paris City Hall to announce the 24 teams selected to participate in the Cup.
This is the third edition of the Cup and the first time it has taken place outside the United States, after the first two were held in Chicago in 2018 and in Detroit in 2022.
The Unified Football World Cup, split into two divisions (men’s and women’s) with twelve teams each, will take place from July 5 to 11 in Paris, where they will compete for the chance to be crowned champions.
The announcement of the teams is the first step in outlining the competitive field for the two divisions.
For the men, host country France was selected first, followed by Bharat (India), Brazil, China, Ecuador, Israel, Jamaica, Libya, Paraguay, Senegal, Spain and the UAE.
Similarly, for the Women, France was selected first, followed by Azerbaijan, Canada, Costa Rica, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Namibia, Slovakia, Thailand and the USA.
Drawing ceremony
The next milestone on the road to the cup is the draw ceremony on April 16 at the French Football Federation headquarters in Paris, where group matches for both the men’s and women’s divisions will take place.
With the tournament featuring twelve men’s and twelve women’s teams and a champion being crowned in each division, there will be two draws on the 16th detailing the round-robin matches in the group stages of both tournaments.
To start the ceremony, host country of the Special Olympics France will be drawn first and placed in group A. The draw is structured so that each group reflects representation from multiple continental regions. This process is then repeated for groups B, C and D in both men’s and women’s competitions.
The United Football World Cup
The opening (5 July) and closing ceremonies (11 July) of the cup will take place in the Charléty Stadium, where the finals will also take place. No cup matches will be played on July 9 due to a rest day between the competition days.
Competition venues include Charléty Stadium, PUC Stadium, Dalmasso Stadium, Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris (CIUP) and West Stadium (CIUP).
Photo by ANTOINE SAILANT
Other events organized in addition to the Unified Football World Cup include Unified sports experiences, Young Athletes programming, Unified celebrity match, Healthy Athletes (hosted at Salle Pierre Charpy, Charléty), community Torch Run and the Special Olympics International Board of Directors Meeting.
The legacy of the first two Unified Football World Cups has helped Special Olympics create sports development plans that are now used to deliver other global single-sport events, most recently the Unified Volleyball World Cup Poland 2025 and the Unified 3×3 Basketball World Cup San Juan 2025.
Single-sport events serve as a crucial catalyst for the development of sport by helping to further dispel stereotypes and implicit limitations of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, both on and off the playing field.
They also support the growth of individual sports with the help of international and national sports federations, directly increasing the depth and understanding of sports within the international sports community, while also engaging new demographics to learn, try and enjoy sports with the help of Special Olympics athletes.
The aim of the Special Olympics Unified Football World Cup is to harness the power of sport to leave a lasting legacy of inclusivity that will impact people with and without intellectual disabilities for generations to come.
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