One million applications, one Pakistani: my road to FIFA World Cup 2026

There is a number that stops people in their tracks when I share it: one million. That is how many people from around the world applied to volunteer at the FIFA World Cup 2026, the highest volunteer application count in the history of any sporting event on the planet. More than the Olympics. More than any previous World Cup. More than any other competition ever staged in human history. From that pool of one million, FIFA selected approximately 65,000 volunteers across 16 host cities spanning Canada, Mexico, and the United States.

I am one of them. And I am from Islamabad, Pakistan. The FIFA World Cup 2026 is not just the biggest edition of the tournament in history. It is a structural step-change. For the first, 48 nations compete across a three-country format running from 11th June to 19th July 2026, making it the most complex logistical undertaking in football’s history. The volunteer programme reflects that scale. FIFA’s community of volunteers now exceeds one million registered members globally. The 65,000 selected for this tournament represent the single largest volunteer deployment FIFA has ever assembled for a World Cup.

To understand what selection means, it helps to look at history. At Russia 2018, FIFA received 176,870 applications and selected roughly 17,000. At Qatar 2022, applications surged to 420,000 from 209 countries, and FIFA ran 58,000 interviews to shortlist 20,000 volunteers. At every edition, the selection ratio has tightened. For 2026, more than one million people applied, and the funnel was unforgiving.

I applied in August 2025. From that initial pool of over one million, FIFA shortlisted between 300,000 and 400,000 candidates for a virtual interview. That alone cut more than half the field. Those who cleared the interview then sat a written assessment evaluating personality, skills, and cognitive ability. One then were the final 65,000 offered positions. The entire process filtered relentlessly for technical competence, language proficiency, and communication skills, attributes that placed international candidates applying from outside the three host nations at a structural disadvantage from the start.

No home-city proximity. No local familiarity with the venues. No football infrastructure behind you. Just the application, the interview, the test, and the result. For a Pakistani applicant, the gap is even wider. Pakistan does not produce World Cup players. It does not send teams. It does not have the football ecosystem that gives applicants from Brazil, Germany, or Spain a natural head start in understanding tournament culture. Every Pakistani who applied started further back. As far as I can determine, I am currently the only Pakistani to have made it through the full process and received an official offer.

I was selected to serve the Accreditation functional area at the San Francisco Bay Area Stadium. Accreditation sits at the intersection of security, logistics, and people. It is one of the most operationally critical roles in a tournament where over a billion people will be watching the world arrive. I did not just apply and get lucky. I went through every stage, demonstrated capability at each filter, and earned the placement. That matters for reasons larger than me.

Pakistan has 260 million people. It has a generation of young, educated, English-speaking professionals hungry for global exposure and global stages. Being represented at the FIFA World Cup 2026, not as a spectator, not as a fan, but as an accredited official volunteer doing the work that makes the tournament run, is a statement about what Pakistanis are capable of when given the opportunity.

I am committed to being there. I am committed to doing the work. I am ready. There is one remaining hurdle: a scheduling gap with my visa appointment. I am actively working through the right channels, including FIFA, to resolve this in time, and I am hopeful that the relevant authorities will be able to make that happen. This is Pakistan’s moment on one of the world’s largest stages. I intend to make it count.