2026 is gearing up to be a fantastic year for sport. When you look across all sports, here in the UK, we've just had the Wilder vs Chisora boxing slugfest that in my view lived up to expectations, and was sandwiched between two unmissable racing festivals with March' Cheltenham Festival and just days ago the April Aintree Grand National Festival. It of course also won't be long until the big one is upon us too, by which I'm of course referring to the Fifa World Cup. England will be at least reasonably confident of getting past the group stage where they will take on Croatia, Ghana and Panama in Group L. At time of writing they are in fact 1/50 to qualify from the group, so it's viewed as something of a foregone conclusion.
The World Cup tournament runs from June 11th – July 19th, 2026 and this year features 48 teams, making it the biggest ever World Cup. There's also more Asian team places than ever before and some exciting play certainly comes from that part of the world, with some familiar player names among them as many players feature in top European leagues. Kaoru Mitoma and Takefusa Kubo to name two Japanese players for instance, since Japan is a team many neutrals will be rooting for. Another Asian side, South Korea, will also feature, with many looking forward to seeing Son Heung-min. Australia, Saudi Arabia and Iran are in the mix too. With the current war situation though it's hard to know exactly how events and the World Cup itself will pan out.
Of course, it's not just the sports, it's often how best to bet on them, and this focus on Asian teams bring forth the strategy that different betting markets can highlight different opportunities. As in the use of Asian bookmakers can result in opportunities for arbitrage bettors that may not be available in other territories. asianconnect is a long standing broker that can make this an angle you can pursue. And of course being that they have access to multiple bookmakers, this helps get the best prices with little concernswuth regard to whether you'll be able to place your bet. Accepting Bitcoin, Neteller and more it's easy to get your bet on, whether you're a football fan, love the races, boxing, MMA, tennis, you name it, you can bet on it. A top betting broker with easy withdrawals, and they even have a sign up bonus, so it's definitely a stand out in terms of broker options.
World Cup aside, other Asian sporting events to keep an eye on in 2026 include the 2026 Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan (Sept 19th – Oct 4th) since includes both sports and esport and the 2026 Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games (Nov 28th – Dec 7th). As you can see there's lots to look forward to, sportswise, both at home and away!
