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Cowboys’ Stephen Jones discusses showcasing AT&T Stadium, North Texas to FIFA president

Jones said the Cowboys feel good about their chances of hosting a ‘big’ 2026 FIFA World Cup match.

Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones recently joined the K&C Masterpiece on 105.3 The Fan [KRLD-FM] to discuss FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s recent visit to AT&T Stadium.

Here are some highlights, edited for clarity:

Does the date July 19, 2026 mean anything to you?

Stephen Jones: “I think it might be in and around that [FIFA] World Cup, when they — I don’t know if it’s the final or not but I think the World Cup might be in this area.”

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Did you get any business done with FIFA president Gianni Infantino when he visited Sunday?

Jones: “Well, we just in general wanted to show him — the Jones family and the Cowboys just think North Texas is the top area in the country, if not the world, to host a finals event like that. [We] think it would be just a great place and wanted to show the officials how dynamic AT&T Stadium can be, how dynamic the area can be and in our minds, he picked a great game to get a great atmosphere for what North Texas is all about. We feel very good about our chances of obviously hosting a big, big game. Of course, anyone who’s anybody and loves sports would love to host a game, like the World Cup. I think it’s the most watched sporting event in the world when you take the worldwide viewership. They certainly enjoyed getting to see how things work when you have 90,000-plus people in a building. Certainly, that’s what they have their eyes on as well. I just think it would be a great event that anyone, obviously you’d have a lot of visitors, but anybody in North Texas would be thrilled to have an event like that come to the area.”

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Have you heard anything about a timeline for those announcements?

Jones: “Our understanding is they’ll announce something in the fall. Nothing more concrete than that, whether it’s a month, two months. In the next month or two months, we’ll see. We had a great exchange with them and I think they were very impressed with what they saw. Certainly, we felt like we’ve got everything out on the table that we could bring to the table, in terms of the community of North Texas. Governor [Greg] Abbott was actually there as well and got to meet him, and he had a great visit with him. He was certainly very welcoming and how much the state of Texas would love to have an event like that here in the state of Texas. We certainly rolled out the red carpet for him.”

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Listen to the full interview here.

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