What The 2026 FIFA World Cup Taught Us About Global Events

When I wrote several pieces about the 2026 FIFA World Cup before the tournament began, my point was simple: the biggest sporting event on the planet was also going to be one of the most complicated legal undertakings ever attempted. Now that the final whistle has blown, that prediction proved to be less of a theory than an observation. For most fans, the World Cup was exactly what it should have been. Extraordinary soccer. Dramatic moments. Packed stadiums. New stars. Unforgettable atmospheres stretching from Mexico City to Toronto to New York and beyond. AI Is Reshaping Legal Practice—But Tools Aren’t The Real Differentiator. Explore the mindset, cultural shifts, and training strategies that define the AI‑savvy lawyer, revealing why human judgment, standardized competence, and integrated learning—not technology alone—will shape the future of the profession. What most people never saw was the legal machinery that allowed all of it to happen. That may be the greatest compliment lawyers involved in the tournament could receive. When legal planning works, it becomes almost invisible. Think about what actually occurred over the course of the tournament. Millions of spectators crossed international borders. National teams, broadcasters, sponsors, vendors, and security personnel operated across three countries with different legal systems. Stadiums functioned on tight schedules. Commercial rights were protected. Intellectual property disputes remained largely out of public view. The tournament itself unfolded with remarkably few legal controversies dominating the headlines. That was never guaranteed. Schenck Price Works Smarter with Lexis+ AI and Protégé LexisNexis sat down with John Ursin, Managing Partner at Schenck Price, to learn how the firm is using legal AI to strengthen client service and daily legal work. Hosting a World Cup across three sovereign nations was an unprecedented exercise in legal coordination. Immigration officials, customs agencies, local governments, police departments, transportation authorities, and private organizations all had to work from carefully negotiated frameworks years in the making. Every successful border crossing, every credential issued, every sponsorship activation, and every television broadcast reflected countless legal decisions made long before a ball was kicked. The tournament also reinforced something lawyers understand well: contracts often matter more than headlines. Host cities honored commitments negotiated years ago despite changes in political leadership. Commercial partnerships survived the inevitable logistical challenges that accompany an event of this size. Ticketing systems, licensing agreements, media rights, and venue operations all functioned because contractual obligations had anticipated problems before they arose. Of course, no event involving millions of people is perfect. There were transportation headaches, security concerns, crowd-management issues, and the occasional dispute that attracted public attention. But considering the sheer scale of the tournament, those issues were exceptions rather than defining features. That should not be mistaken for luck. It reflected years of planning by lawyers, risk managers, insurers, government officials, and countless professionals whose work rarely appears on highlight reels. The tournament also offered an interesting reminder about the growing role of private organizations in shaping public life. FIFA is not a government, yet during the World Cup it exercised enormous influence over everything from branding and commercial rights to venue operations and dispute resolution. Governments willingly accepted many of those conditions because hosting the tournament promised economic benefits, global visibility, and long-term investment. Whether that balance remains appropriate is a fair question for future host nations. The World Cup once again demonstrated that mega-events increasingly rely on agreements in which private organizations exercise significant authority over public spaces and public resources. That reality deserves thoughtful public discussion before the next host signs on the dotted line. Perhaps the biggest lesson, though, is one lawyers have known all along. People often think of the law as something that reacts to crises. In reality, its greatest success is preventing them. The best legal work rarely produces headlines because its purpose is to keep problems from becoming headlines in the first place. The 2026 FIFA World Cup succeeded because millions of moving parts operated within carefully constructed legal frameworks that most fans never noticed. That invisibility was not accidental. It was the product of years of negotiation, drafting, coordination, and risk management carried out by professionals whose names will never appear next to the tournament’s greatest goals. As lawyers, we sometimes joke that nobody appreciates good legal work until something goes wrong. The 2026 World Cup reminded us that sometimes the opposite is true. When everything goes right, that’s often the strongest evidence that the legal work was exceptional. Michael J. Epstein, a Harvard Law School graduate, is a trial lawyer and managing partner of The Epstein Law Firm, P.A., a law firm based in New Jersey.