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EXCLUSIVE – Seventy-eight Super Bowls in 38 days. That’s the scale facing the Federal Bureau of Investigation ahead of the first World Cup final the United States has hosted in more than 30 years.
“That’s exactly what we accomplished,” FBI Director Cash Patel told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview detailing the largest commitment of agency resources ever dedicated to the security of a sporting event, the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
“We are proud to report that, thank God and the men and women of the FBI and our partners, we have had no significant criminal incidents during this World Cup,” Patel said. “By comparison, 6.5 million people attended 78 matches in the US across 11 venues.”
Patel said planning and implementation must be “mathematically precise.”
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Exclusive: FBI Director Kash Patel details how the agency and its partners secured the World Cup at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. on July 18, 2026. (Lee Green for Fox News Digital)
The tournament broke previous attendance records and attracted millions of foreign visitors to the country. The FBI deployed approximately 5,000 personnel to this effort, including more than 4,000 from field offices, 800 from FBI Headquarters and two legal attaché offices, and support from 59 Homeland Security Task Forces.
The bureau also conducted approximately 300,000 background checks on players, coaches and other accredited personnel. In total, nearly 7 million fans from around the world attended World Cup games in the United States, Canada and Mexico, with no major security incidents reported. In fact, it often took fans less than 15 minutes to get to the stadium with an average stadium attendance of over 65,000.
A defining element of the FBI’s security operation has been its aggressive response to the rapidly evolving threat posed by drones. Recognizing that even a low-cost drone could be used to monitor players training at dozens of team base camps across the country, track their movements to and from hotels, test security tactics at stadiums or fan zones, disrupt an event or deliver an explosive or chemical device, the bureau treated every unauthorized intrusion as a potential threat.
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Exclusive: FBI Director Kash Patel looks at a large screen filled with data inside the FBI’s Intelligence Coordination Center. Patel praised the agency and its partners who helped deliver the record-breaking World Cup. (Lee Green for Fox News Digital)
“If you are in space, we will shoot you down. And that’s why we shot down more than 700 people,” Patel said. “Some of these people may have been a border nuisance, while many of them were criminals in terms of violating FAA airspace as well as failing to register their drones… We’re not taking any chances.”
The FBI has established its first specialized counter-UAV (unmanned aircraft systems) school at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama to train state and local officers to detect, track and intercept unauthorized drones. Those officers were then deployed as part of FBI-led ground interception teams at World Cup venues, creating a nationwide counter-drone capability designed to combat a threat that barely existed when the United States last hosted the tournament in 1994.
Exclusive: FBI Director Kash Patel speaks with members of the agency’s Intelligence Coordination Center. Patel praised the FBI and its partners for safely organizing the World Cup. (Lee Green for Fox News Digital)
“We at the FBI are specifically preparing for the worst of the worst,” Patel said, pointing to the possibility of using drones to deploy explosives or chemicals. Former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino was instrumental in developing the FBI’s counter-drone program.
That preparation was put to the test in the midst of the World Cup when investigators uncovered a suspected coordinated attack on the UFC Freedom 250 event at the White House.
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Exclusive: An FBI employee works in the agency’s Intelligence Coordination Center, tracking threats and coordinating security operations during the World Cup. (Lee Green for Fox News Digital)
Federal prosecutors say the suspects planned to use explosive-laden drones to cause panic and force crowds to evacuate to areas where armed assailants could strike. Patel said the FBI launched an operation in six states, tracked the suspected threat through online communications and began a coordinated takedown “before the first strike was struck,” allowing the event to proceed without an attack.
Eight defendants have since been charged, although the charges remain unproven and the defendants are presumed innocent.
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International cooperation was another important component of the World Cup security operation.
“They work abroad at home and provide us with real-time information about any incoming threat,” Patel said.
Exclusive: FBI Director Kash Patel speaks with staff inside the agency center created to ensure the security of the World Cup. (Lee Green for Fox News Digital)
The FBI stationed the International Police Cooperation Center in Northern Virginia, sending more than 70 officers to work alongside officers from U.S. host cities and security personnel representing countries sending teams to the tournament.
The FBI also created a Joint Operations Center with foreign police representatives from 46 of the 48 participating countries, allowing investigators to gain real-time threat intelligence from officials who understand their teams, fans and homeland security concerns. According to the FBI, this information was confirmed by the FBI’s Intelligence Coordination Center, where more than 400 employees processed an average of 26 incidents per day and prepared approximately 100 intelligence reports for federal, state, local and private sector partners.
Patel credited the White House World Cup task force for bringing together federal, state and local agencies under a unified security strategy. The task force, created by President Donald Trump and led by Andrew Giuliani’s team, served as a central hub for interagency planning, intelligence sharing and rapid deployment of law enforcement resources to the 11 U.S. cities hosting the tournament.
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“Like everything in government, you need tremendous leadership to be successful,” Patel said. “President Trump had the foresight to create a White House task force … and they were able to bring in interagency entities, at least at the federal level, and then work with us at the state and local level through our partnerships and bring everyone under one roof.”
Patel said the coordinated structure allowed the FBI to quickly dispatch bomb technicians, eyewitness teams, tactical operators, SWAT officers and hostage rescue specialists to where additional resources were needed.
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“President Trump set the standard: not only were we going to host the largest and safest sporting event in the history of the world, but we were going to make sure everyone had a great time. These were orders,” Patel said.
He pointed to videos on social media of international fans enjoying restaurants, pubs, sports fields and other distinctly American activities, and even joked that Europeans have fallen in love with the ranch.
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“These are small episodes, but they quantify and characterize how great America is doing,” Patel said. “And I don’t just mean the government. I mean the private sector. They also came and became our partners.”
Exclusive: Large screens display data inside the FBI command center. (Lee Green for Fox News Digital)
Patel said these partnerships have helped generate billions of dollars in revenue across the country by providing visitors with memorable experiences.
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“They wanted not just safety and security, but to showcase America to the world,” he said. “And I think we did it brilliantly.”
Kelly Cramer is the managing editor of Fox News Digital. Prior to joining the web team, Kelly spent ten years as a producer in morning television, including cable television’s top-rated morning news show, Fox & Friends.