It is es­ti­mat­ed that over 12,000 Colom­bian foot­ball fans vis­it­ed the Cor­fe­rias Ex­hi­bi­tion Cen­tre, Bo­gotá, Colom­bia, be­tween Feb­ru­ary 15 and 16 to catch a glimpse of the 18-karat gold and se­mi-pre­cious mala­chite Orig­i­nal FI­FA World Cup Tro­phy.

Stand­ing at 36.8 cen­time­tres tall and weigh­ing 6.175 kilo­grammes, the tro­phy was dis­played on a pedestal to­wards the front of a large au­di­to­ri­um, where hun­dreds of pho­tog­ra­phy and video cam­eras were po­si­tioned await­ing its un­veil­ing from be­neath a black FI­FA- and Co­ca-Co­la-brand­ed cov­er­ing.

France’s 1998 World Cup win­ner, David Trezeguet, had the task of re­veal­ing the tro­phy, which was en­cased in a glass hous­ing. And mo­ments lat­er, the for­mer Mona­co and Ju­ven­tus strik­er lift­ed the tro­phy to his lips, pos­ing for the cam­eras.

World Cup win­ners are among a se­lect few in­di­vid­u­als ac­tu­al­ly al­lowed to hold the World Cup Tro­phy, with on­ly Heads of State and high-rank­ing FI­FA of­fi­cials al­so able to en­joy the ho­n­our.

The FI­FA World Cup Tro­phy Tour by Co­ca-Co­la, FI­FA’s long-stand­ing part­ner, of­fers fans around the world a once-in-a-life­time op­por­tu­ni­ty to see the tro­phy first­hand and ex­pe­ri­ence the mag­ic of sport’s most sought-af­ter prize.

Bo­gotá, Colom­bia, be­came the third stop of the tro­phy tour’s Latin Amer­i­can leg and one of 75 glob­al stops across 150 days lead­ing up to the June 11 to Ju­ly 19 FI­FA World Cup tour­na­ment in Mex­i­co, Cana­da and the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca.

Al­though the tro­phy will not vis­it the Caribbean this year, the re­gion holds its place with­in the ex­is­tence of the ini­tia­tive.

Where­as Ja­maica was the first to wel­come the tro­phy as a part of the Co­ca-Co­la tour in 2013, Trinidad and To­ba­go owns the dis­tinc­tion of both be­ing the first-ever Caribbean na­tion to host the tro­phy (2006) as well as be­ing the re­gion’s most vis­it­ed coun­try (2006, 2010 and 2022).

Oth­er Caribbean coun­tries to have host­ed the tro­phy in­clude Grena­da, Haiti, Suri­name, Turks and Caicos, the Ba­hamas, the Cay­man Is­lands, and Guyana.

Not to be to­tal­ly left out this time around, se­lect­ed me­dia per­son­nel from Caribbean coun­tries—Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic and World Cup debu­tantes Cu­ra­cao—were flown to Bo­go­ta for the grand oc­ca­sion, join­ing dozens more from through­out Latin Amer­i­ca on the im­mer­sive tour ex­pe­ri­ence.

The dis­tinc­tion of the oc­ca­sion was best ex­plained when we spoke with Co­ca-Co­la’s Cen­tral Zone se­nior di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Af­fairs, Daniel Suárez.

“Re­mem­ber that we have on­ly two op­por­tu­ni­ties to have this orig­i­nal tro­phy. That tro­phy sits in a Swiss mu­se­um, a FI­FA mu­se­um, and it ex­ists on­ly twice. Once for the in­au­gu­ra­tion and the fi­nal game (of the World Cup), and the oth­er is for the tro­phy tour by Co­ca-Co­la.”

Lidia Cas­tro, cor­po­rate af­fairs and com­mu­ni­ca­tions di­rec­tor for the Co­ca-Co­la Com­pa­ny in the Caribbean, said, “It’s been an ab­solute de­light to have me­dia from Trinidad and To­ba­go here with us in Bo­go­ta. We want to bring fans clos­er, and we want to bring Trinida­di­an con­sumers clos­er to the orig­i­nal FI­FA World Cup Tro­phy.”

Two hours be­fore Trezeguet’s grand re­veal, the in­ter­ac­tive ex­hi­bi­tion in Bo­gotá be­gan with a guid­ed tour through a se­ries of cor­ri­dors and rooms, each em­bell­ished with FI­FA World Cup and Co­ca-Co­la facts, arte­facts and oth­er tid­bits.

From news­pa­per clip­pings to prod­uct dis­plays, a pro­ject­ed sta­di­um sim­u­la­tion, retro fly­ers, equip­ment, and col­lec­table items.

One of the favourite at­trac­tions was the gi­ant-sized 2026 FI­FA World Cup ball—the Adi­das Trion­da, which stood on a man­tle in the mid­dle of a room con­tain­ing repli­cas of pre­vi­ous World Cup balls sus­pend­ed from the ceil­ing.

Lilo Sul­varan, a jour­nal­ist from Cu­ra­cao’s Vig­i­lante news­pa­per, said, “I think it was very well or­gan­ised, and I think it was well de­served that they han­dled it in such a way. For us from the Caribbean, of course, the Cup has been there al­ready, but then it’s nice to see it in a Latin Amer­i­can coun­try.”

In the 20 years of the FI­FA World Cup Tro­phy Tour by Co­ca-Co­la, more than four mil­lion fans have had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in the im­mer­sive fan en­gage­ments and in­ter­act with the FI­FA leg­ends.

De­signed to not on­ly in­tro­duce at­ten­dees to the tro­phy but al­so to cel­e­brate the his­to­ry of the FI­FA World Cup through its 96-year his­to­ry, the tour’s North Amer­i­can leg of the FI­FA World Cup Tro­phy Tour by Co­ca-Co­la of­fi­cial­ly be­gins to­day in Mex­i­co City, Mex­i­co, vis­it­ing ten cities there.

Over the next three and a half months, the tro­phy will make a fur­ther 21 stops in the USA (11 host cities) and sev­en stops in sev­en Cana­di­an cities be­fore re­turn­ing to Mex­i­co City for the open­ing of the 2026 FI­FA World Cup.