So far 13 teams have qualified:
AFC (6): Australia, Iran, Japan, Jordan (debut), South Korea and Uzbekistan (debut)
CONCACAF (3): Canada (co-host), Mexico (co-host) and the United States (co-host)
CONMEBOL (3): Argentina, Brazil and Ecuador
OFC (1): New Zealand
At present there are 16 venues that have been picked for the tournament, split into three regions:
West: Los Angeles, SF Bay Area, Seattle, Vancouver
Central: Dallas, Guadalajara, Houston , Kansas City, Mexico City, Monterrey
East: Atlanta, Boston, Miami, NY/NJ, Philadelphia , Toronto
There could be last minute changes though, as there are clouds at the horizon...
The host nations have promised to welcome the participating teams and their fans and to facilitate travel and accomodation.
But since signing this agreement the USA has issued full travel bans against 12 countries and partial travel bans against 6 more, which includes a ban on B-1 and B-2 visas, which are the ones used for tourism. At least one country affected by this (Iran) has qualified for the tournament and several others (eg Venezuela) may do so.
And apart from these travel bans, the US has unilaterally added red tape and made it harder for people to enter the USA, including randomly adding a USD250 fee for visa applications on top of the already existing fees. For a family of four that is an additional USD1000 just to have someone look at your visa application, not even guaranteeing that you get it approved.
Add to this that several countries already experience a 9 months waiting time for visa processing, which means that if they haven't already applied for a visa to the USA, they will not get it in time for the tournament, and they may not even know if their country has qualified yet.
Against this background several voices have raised concerns that the USA is not fullfilling their part of the agreement and that they should be stripped of their role as host nation and all games reassigned to Mexico and Canada that allow most nations visa free access and have speedy processes for those that need visas. Usually free or at a minimal processing fee.
It would not be the first time this has happened. It is written into the hosting agreement that the tournament can be moved with a 90 day advance notice. This has happened once before; the 1986 World Cup was scheduled to be held in Colombia, but as Colombia couldn't meet the requirements it was moved to Mexico instead. That time they made the decision several years before the cup was held though. This would be trickier as it is less than a year left to the tournament, But from what I hear FIFA has already been discussing this with Canada and Mexico and most certainly with the USA as well. The easiest solution would be for the USA to scale back the travel restrictions and trumped up fees and live up to the agreement they signed with FIFA.
* for FIFA purposes Australia is considered part of Asia while Israel, Armenia and Turkey are considered part of Europe
