France Secures 2026 FIFA World Cup Base in Boston

The French Football Federation has confirmed that the French national team will have its base camp at the Four Seasons hotel in downtown Boston during the 2026 FIFA World Cup this summer.

A video released by the FFF shows French manager Didier Deschamps touring the venue along with his backroom staff at some point after the World Cup draw in early December.

Les Bleus will train at Babson College in Wellesley, located 15 miles west of Boston and roughly a half-hour drive from the hotel.

France will kick off its 2026 FIFA World Cup Group I campaign against Senegal on June 16 at MetLife Stadium before facing Bolivia, Iraq or Suriname in Philadelphia on June 22, and concluding its group stage against Norway at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough on June 26.

In advance of the World Cup, France will compete in the new U.S. “Road to 26” series, in which it will play Brazil at Gillette Stadium on March 26 and Colombia at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Md., on March 29. Les Bleus will also play two friendly matches at home before flying out for the tournament, with L’Equipe reporting that they will face Ivory Coast and a Scandinavian team.

Base Camp Selection Process Details

Since the World Cup Draw in December, qualified national teams have been scouring potential base camps across host countries Canada, Mexico and the United States. FIFA provided a brochure of base camp options that meet its quality standards, but the 64 options for 48 teams has reportedly led to some frustration among national teams that have begun sourcing their own training sites and lodging facilities.

International federations had until January 9 to submit their top five base camp preferences to FIFA. Considerations for base camp preferences would include the location of games within the match schedule, distance from the airport, travel time, privacy, the quality of pitches and health and fitness equipment, the potential for side-activities, the accommodation of national traveling press and more.

It is not known how FIFA is prioritizing requests for base camp preferences, other than saying it wants to minimize travel as much as possible during the tournament. However, some sources have claimed that Pot One teams, including the host countries and the highest-ranked teams in the world to qualify, are being given higher precedence, ahead of teams in Pots Two, Three and Four.

Meanwhile, the remaining six teams that will qualify in March through the intercontinental playoff formats will be automatically assigned their base camps by FIFA prior to the World Cup.

A Milestone FIFA World Cup

The 2026 FIFA World Cup will be the first to feature 48 teams (up from 32 in 2022) across 12 groups and the first to be held across three host countries, making the base camp selection process more complex than at any tournament. The competition will begin on June 11 in Mexico City with a match between Mexico and South Africa, in a repeat of the opening game at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

Germany (Winston-Salem, North Carolina) and Croatia (Alexandria, Virginia) are the two national teams besides the host countries to formally announce their World Cup base camps so far.

And earlier this week, FIFA reported that more than half a billion ticket requests for the 2026 FIFA World Cup were submitted during the Random Selection Draw ticket sales phase, which ran from December 11, 2025 to January 13, 2026.