Mexico City warmly embraced the FIFA World Cup 2026™ and the tournament will leave an impressive legacy as the city government uses the event as a springboard to renovate 500 pitches, breathing life into communities around the vast metropolis.

The imposing Mexico City Stadium was a majestic setting for five FIFA World Cup 2026™ matches, with an atmosphere that left visiting fans and teams spellbound. Outside, hundreds of thousands of citizens poured onto the streets after every Mexico win to celebrate and party, as they demonstrated the country’s incredible passion for football.

“Mexico City is very big and football mad. In Mexico City, people make a pitch with two rocks or with a school backpack and a ball. People deeply love this sport in Mexico,” said Alejandra Frausto, Secretary of Tourism for the Government of Mexico City.

“I don’t know if it’s related to our cultural roots with the juego de pelota [a Mesoamerican ballgame], but we’re really football mad in this city. And public spaces are where society is formed, where a society is recognised and where a community is created. That’s why it was very important to renovate the pitches.”

The project is an example of how hosting a FIFA World Cup can benefit a Host City and leave a lasting legacy. Like FIFA, the Government of Mexico City believes that football’s benefits extend well beyond the confines of a pitch.

“I think each pitch is like a seed. It’s like a seed which generates life around it – community life – and the renovation of the pitches and installation of new pitches was one of the pillars of the infrastructure that would be left behind after the (FIFA) World Cup,” she said.

“The (FIFA) World Cup is a very good pretext and it’s an event that boosts public works. Because the eyes of the world are on us, the (FIFA) World Cup gives us the opportunity to showcase this giant city that we have, but the pitch infrastructure is social infrastructure that we need, always.”

The 500 pitches are a mixture of artificial or natural turf, seven-a-side and full-size. A newly-created Secretariat for Sport will look after the administration, deciding timetables for their use – leagues will be organised in many cases – but an overriding principle is that they will be free for the public.

The city government has also organised a football tournament, played from October 2025 to February 2026, with more than 2,000 matches played and 7,648 girls and boys registered.

“I’ve always believed that there’s an infrastructure that gives young people the chance to develop through sport, culture and activities that bring them together, that keep them active and prevent them from feeling isolated, that shield them from a small screen and encourage them to interact with other people,” said Frausto.

“There’s football for the blind, there are people with disabilities, there’s wheelchair football – no one should be left behind when it comes to an opportunity like this. So, the more opportunities there are, the more community groups are formed to help people make progress.”

Former players have commented on how the renovated pitches are a huge improvement over the conditions which they faced. For example, Las Pioneras, whofinished as runners-up in the 1971 women’s football championship held in the capital, had to make do with a borrowed pitch which was only available late in the day, meaning they often finished playing in the dark.

Frausto said former Mexico forward Francisco “Kikín” Fonseca remarked on how he trained on “sandpaper” pitches. “They used this term because if you fell on it, you grazed yourself, it was quite harsh and dangerous. Besides, he also said it was on a slope. So, when he saw the pitches where new generations can train he realised that they were completely different to what they had experienced,” she said.

FIFA recently inaugurated Mexico’s first FIFA Arena mini-pitch at the Octavio Paz School in the municipality of La Paz, around 30 kilometres outside Mexico City, as part of FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s pledge to install 1,000 such pitches in less privileged rural and urban areas around the world. This is the first of ten FIFA Arena mini-pitch facilities to be built as a result of the partnership between FIFA, the Mexican Football Federation (FMF) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

As far as Frausto is concerned, there can never be enough football pitches. “I think that there is always a need for more. Always, always, always. Right now, with 500 pitches, we don’t mean to say that all the pitches that needed to be built in Mexico City have now been completed.”