{"id":230927,"date":"2026-04-01T23:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T23:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/230927\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T23:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T23:02:11","slug":"fifas-houston-world-cup-shirts-feature-cacti-not-native-to-houston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/230927\/","title":{"rendered":"FIFA’s Houston World Cup shirts feature cacti not native to Houston"},"content":{"rendered":"

Houston increasingly displays\u00a0World Cup signage and branding<\/a> throughout the city, and an initial batch of merchandise was released online Wednesday morning. Houstonians quickly noticed one apparent error.\u00a0<\/p>\n

An official FIFA t-shirt design posted on Reddit<\/a> features a lovely orange sunset over the Houston skyline, with blue lettering that reads “2026 FIFA World Cup Houston”, with “Texas USA” written to the right. Once confirmed that it was not an April Fool’s Joke, as the shirt is available on Fanatics and MLSStore.com<\/a>, questions needed to be raised.<\/p>\n

The design is pleasing enough. But there’s one problem with it, one that’s obvious to any local horticulturalist. The skyline is framed by two saguaro cacti, a plant native to Arizona, but not quite Texas. Want to cut the shirt designers some slack and say cacti are native to at least parts of West Texas? Fair enough. But this is a Houston-specific shirt. Last time I checked, there’s no sprouting cactus to be found in the Bayou City.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wednesday’s leaked shirt design isn’t the first time cacti have become a hot topic in Houston. The\u00a0Houston Astros<\/a>\u00a0released a new “Team Landscape” edition hat for Spring Training in 2024 that similarly featured a saguaro cactus alongside the traditional Astros logo. The snafu may seem harmless enough. But it’s also a sign of disrespect to the beloved prickly-pear cactus, the actual cacti found in Houston. Don’t believe me? I’ll leave it to\u00a0Abigail Rosenthal<\/a>, Chron’s\u00a0culture<\/a> editor and in-house green thumb, to explain further.<\/p>\n

“True, the prickly pear is not as aesthetically pleasing, nor does it have the stereotypical shape that screams “CACTUS” to outsiders. But slapping a saguaro on any apparel or art meant for a Texas tourist is a tried and true\u2014and wrong\u2014tradition,” Rosenthal wrote after the Astros’ erroneous hat<\/a> release. “The prickly pear doesn\u2019t get enough credit outside of Texas. It\u2019s the official plant of the Lone Star State.”<\/p>\n

“[The prickly pear] may not be as flashy and stately as a saguaro, but it is Texas\u2019 cactus. The underdog of cacti, if you will.”<\/p>\n

As you can see, the saguaro is a perfectly lovely plant. It just doesn’t belong anywhere near designs involving the Bayou City.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the t-shirt can be tweaked ahead of the World Cup’s arrival. However, the design has\u00a0spread online, and the subsequent snarky comments might signal trouble for FIFA’s World Cup branding, especially in Houston. Yes, Houston is in the Lone Star State, a place associated with cowboys and cattle in the global consciousness. But those tired themes no longer represent Houston, a buzzing, multicultural delight. I suspect international visitors will find exactly that this summer. Let’s hope the rest of FIFA’s Houston apparel veers from old themes and into the Houston of today.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston increasingly displays\u00a0World Cup signage and branding throughout the city, and an initial batch of merchandise was released…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[16469,87172,1704,89282,56,58,57],"class_list":{"0":"post-230927","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-chronsports","9":"tag-chronsportsbiz","10":"tag-chronstaff","11":"tag-chronworldcup","12":"tag-houston","13":"tag-houston-headlines","14":"tag-houston-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}