Gabby Logan is part of the BBC’s presenting team for the 2026 World Cup in North America and has spoken about the first match on her schedule.
Gabby Logan has discovered her schedule for the BBC’s World Cup coverage, and there’s a bittersweet element to her first game in the studio. Logan, whose father Terry Yorath played for and managed the Welsh national team, will anchor the broadcast of the Group B match between Canada and Bosnia & Herzegovina on June 12. However, had it not been for play-off heartbreak in March, it could have been Wales taking on the co-hosts.
Logan’s Personal Disappointment
“My first game is a personal disappointment because it was supposed to be, in my mind, Canada-Wales,” Logan said. “And then I thought maybe it would be Canada-Italy. So although I’m excited about Canada-Bosnia & Herzegovina, that wasn’t the game that I thought I’d be doing when I first got presented with my schedule.”
Matches broadcast by the BBC will be split between Logan and her fellow Match of the Day hosts Mark Chapman and Kelly Cates, as well as former England women’s international Alex Scott. While there has been no confirmation regarding who will present the final, there will be plenty of matches for all four hosts.
Wales’ World Cup Qualification Journey
Wales finished second in their group behind Belgium to make it into the play-offs. Had Craig Bellamy’s side made it through to the tournament proper, they would have faced Qatar and Switzerland, as well as co-hosts Canada.
They qualified for the 2022 World Cup via the play-offs but came up short this time, losing on penalties to Bosnia & Herzegovina after Edin Dzeko’s late equaliser cancelled out a Dan James goal. Sergej Barbarez’s team then won a second shoot-out against Italy, again after a 1-1 draw, to seal qualification.
Logan also confirmed she will present England’s group stage match against Ghana. However, the BBC’s hosts will begin the tournament in the studio in Salford before only heading out to North America for the latter stages.
Studio-Based Coverage Approach
“I think we’ve done a lot of tournaments like this now,” Logan said. “We did the Women’s World Cup like this, we did the Women’s Euros [in 2025] like this.”
She added: “There are lots of good reasons why we do that, and I think our coverage has been exceptional on those tournaments and award-winning in the case of last week’s BAFTAs. So I don’t think it’s harmed our coverage to not be there for the whole tournament. We will have people on the ground; obviously, we’ve got reporters and commentators who are there. So we will very much have a feel of people being there. And even when we have done tournaments where we’ve been based in one place, whether that’s Paris and the Euros or going back to Brazil, in Rio, that was one studio in one place with everything else going on around. So I don’t think it actually affects or diminishes the experience of the audience at all.”
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