2026 WAFF World Cup

The 2026 WAFF World Cup is the 17th WAFF World Cup, the world championship for men's nationa teams.

Involving Hendalarsk
Incited at least in part by the inflammatory rhetoric of then-dí Fischadler head coach Bobál Lászlo, Hendalarsk's Group F game against fierce rivals Eldmora-Regulus was an immensely bad-tempered match which ended up as a 3-3 draw. This sparked furious protests outside the Eldmoran embassy in Frémenwerd, in which hundreds of protestors urinated on the outer wall of the Eldmoran diplomatic compound while Hendalarskara police, officially citing a desire not to escalate the situation, simply watched on. Fines and short community service orders were eventually handed down to many participants in the discorder in the following weeks, but this was widely interpreted by many commentators as a set of slap-on-the-wrist punishments which allowed the Hendalarskara government to formally claim to have addressed the incident without actually taking serious action.

Further controversy followed after the final set of fixtures in the groups. Hendalarsk's 3-1 victory over Pursat meant that a draw between Eldmora and the already-qualified Pelaxia would be sufficient for Eldmora to qualify in second place, and this duly occurred in the form of a dour 0-0 fixture. Bobál was quick to allege that the game had been subject to match-fixing, drawing a sharp rebuke from WAFF, although the Hendalarskara football federation (HFB) did submit a formal complaint around both the scheduling of the final round of fixtures in general and the conduct of the 0-0 draw in particular to WAFF (outcome pending). Hundreds of Hendalarsk-based accounts on IxTwitter were banned for violent threats against Eldmoran players and the referee of the 0-0 draw, Chet Adams, in the game's immediate aftermath, which together with the mass urination incident prompted calls from some quarters in Hendalarsk for a "national reckoning" about fan conduct.