FEMA's $500 Million Counter-UAS Grant And The Parallel FIFA World Cup Security Program: Two New FY2026 NOFOs That Reshape State And Local Homeland Security Funding

In the early weeks of June 2026, the Federal Emergency Management Agency published two related Notices of Funding Opportunity that, taken together, constitute the largest single-event homeland-security grant package the federal government has issued since the Urban Area Security Initiative was created in the wake of September 11. The first is the Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems (C-UAS) Grant Program, with $500 million in available funding and an explicit grounding in Executive Order 14305, Restoring American Airspace Sovereignty. The second is the FIFA World Cup Grant Program, a new standalone vehicle dedicated to security and preparedness investments by the eleven U.S. host cities of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

The two programs operate from the same political driver — the federal government's calculation that a 39-day, multi-host-city, internationally televised sporting event in summer 2026 is the most concentrated homeland-security planning challenge of the decade — but the eligibility structures, the allowable uses, and the strategic positioning for applicants differ in ways that have not been fully absorbed by the relevant state, local, and tribal jurisdictions. This piece works through both NOFOs and identifies the strategic moves that potential applicants should be making in the next two weeks.

The Counter-UAS program in the context of EO 14305

Executive Order 14305 was issued under the heading Restoring American Airspace Sovereignty with a stated purpose of strengthening federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial capabilities to detect, identify, track, monitor, and — where statutorily authorized — disrupt unmanned aircraft systems operating in U.S. airspace. The order recognized two related concerns: the proliferation of commercially-available small UAS, which have transformed the airspace risk profile around mass-gathering events, and the patchwork of federal, state, and local authority over UAS counter-measures, which has historically left non-federal jurisdictions without an effective response posture.

The C-UAS Grant Program operationalizes the order's funding component. The $500 million ceiling, while substantial, is small relative to the demand. There are roughly 19,000 state and local law enforcement agencies in the United States, several thousand state and local emergency management offices, and a long list of public-safety agencies that could plausibly argue a need for C-UAS capability. The program will not fund all of them, and the program's selection criteria will heavily weight applicants who can demonstrate both proximity to recognized threat vectors and the institutional capacity to absorb sophisticated detection equipment.

The four core capability categories the program identifies — detect, identify, track, and monitor — are deliberate. They focus on situational-awareness capability rather than active disruption. The active-disruption authority, which involves jamming or kinetic intervention against UAS, remains substantially federal. State and local recipients are expected to build the sensor and analytic layer; federal partners retain the action authority. This distinction matters for applicants drafting their project narratives: the program will not fund counter-measure systems that exceed state authority, and applications that suggest otherwise will not pass technical review.

The FIFA World Cup Grant Program as a parallel vehicle

The FIFA World Cup Grant Program is structurally separate from the C-UAS program. The two NOFOs were issued at the same time and share political lineage in the White House FIFA World Cup Task Force's recommendations, but they are different grants with different recipient pools.

The FIFA World Cup Grant Program is dedicated to the eleven United States host cities: Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York/New Jersey, Philadelphia, San Francisco Bay Area, and Seattle. The grant is structured to address the elevated security demands of the event — perimeter security, transportation security, crowd management, medical surge capacity, communications infrastructure, and continuity-of-operations planning at the host venues and the adjacent fan-engagement zones. The program is, in effect, a one-time supplement to the Urban Area Security Initiative funding the host cities already receive, scaled to the specific demands of the tournament.

The host-city restriction is important. Non-host cities — including major cities that will see significant tournament-related visitor traffic, like Chicago and Washington — are not eligible for the FIFA World Cup Grant Program. They are eligible for the C-UAS Grant Program, and they are eligible for the existing Urban Area Security Initiative, but they cannot draw on the dedicated FIFA program.

This eligibility split creates a strategic distinction. Host cities should be developing parallel applications under both programs, with the FIFA Grant Program covering event-specific perimeter and venue security and the C-UAS Grant Program covering airspace-specific capability. Non-host cities should be developing single-program applications under C-UAS, with project narratives that emphasize how their counter-UAS capability supports the broader regional security posture during the tournament rather than venue-specific event security at their own facilities.

Where non-host cities should focus

The C-UAS Grant Program's eligibility extends to state, local, tribal, and territorial governments, including law enforcement agencies, emergency management agencies, and public-safety entities. The program does not require a tournament nexus, but the program's selection criteria will reward applicants who can articulate one. For non-host cities and regional public-safety agencies, the strongest applications will identify a specific tournament-related threat vector that local C-UAS capability would address.

Three categories of non-host cities have the strongest natural arguments. First, cities that host the tournament's pre-event training camps and base camps — the team training facilities that will be staffed by national teams for the weeks leading up to and during the tournament. Several training camps will be hosted in cities that are not match-day venues, and those facilities will have elevated security demands that the city alone has to plan for. Second, cities that host major tournament-related fan engagement, including official FIFA Fan Festivals in non-host markets and unofficial gatherings at major sports bars, public viewing locations, and university campuses. Third, transportation-corridor cities — particularly along the Northeast Corridor and the I-95 spine — that will see substantial tournament-related ground transportation between host venues.

A fourth category is harder to pitch but real: cities that host critical infrastructure with proximity to host markets. A power-generation facility, water-treatment plant, or rail yard within the operational radius of a host city has, during the tournament, a threat profile elevated above its baseline. The non-host jurisdiction that hosts the facility has a legitimate counter-UAS need rooted in critical-infrastructure protection rather than event security.

Allowable uses and the equipment-versus-personnel question

Both programs permit a range of allowable uses, including equipment acquisition, training, exercises, planning, technical assistance, and personnel — but with important constraints. Federal grant programs in the homeland-security space have historically been weighted toward equipment, in part because equipment investments produce visible deliverables and in part because personnel funding creates ongoing fiscal commitments that the federal government does not want to assume. The C-UAS and FIFA programs follow this pattern.

Applicants drafting their project narratives should expect that equipment requests will be evaluated against a clear cost-effectiveness standard and that personnel requests will be evaluated against a sustainability standard. An application that asks for $4 million in sensor equipment plus four full-time analytic positions is structurally weaker than an application that asks for $4 million in sensor equipment plus a three-year training contract with a vendor that includes analytic services. The second structure leaves the recipient with a defined cost burden after the federal funding ends; the first leaves the recipient with a permanent personnel obligation that the federal government has not endorsed.

Training and exercise components are likely to be selection-favorable across both programs. The historical pattern in homeland-security grants is that the strongest applications package equipment with a multi-year training, exercise, and after-action review structure that demonstrates the recipient is committed to operational integration of the funded capability. Applications that ask only for equipment, with no training or exercise plan, read as weaker.

The State Administrative Agency channel

For the C-UAS program, most state and local awards will flow through the State Administrative Agency in each state — the entity designated by the governor to receive and pass through federal homeland-security funds. This is the same channel that handles Urban Area Security Initiative, State Homeland Security Program, and the various FEMA preparedness grants. The SAA channel matters because it imposes its own application calendar, its own technical assistance protocols, and its own competitive selection process for sub-applicants within the state.

A local jurisdiction's C-UAS application will, in most cases, be a sub-application submitted to the SAA, which in turn submits a consolidated state application to FEMA. The SAA's own deadlines will precede FEMA's, sometimes by weeks. A local public-safety agency that is not in regular contact with its SAA should be contacting the SAA this week to ask what the state's planned C-UAS submission strategy is. States that have already developed a state-level C-UAS plan — typically the states with major host cities or major federal facilities — will be structurally further along than states that have not.

The pre-issuance political review interaction

The FY2026 awards under both the C-UAS and FIFA programs will likely be issued before the OMB rewrite of 2 CFR Part 200 takes effect on October 1, 2026. The original C-UAS NOFO timeline anticipates award decisions in mid-to-late summer, and the FIFA World Cup Grant Program has a faster timeline driven by the tournament's June 2026 kickoff. Awards issued before October 1 fall under the existing 2 CFR 200 regime.

Continuation funding, supplemental funding, and any FY2027 follow-on programs will be subject to the new political pre-issuance review requirement. Recipients should treat the initial FY2026 award as the funding most readily available under the lighter review regime and plan their multi-year capability investments accordingly. The equipment that the FY2026 funds buy will need to be sustained, exercised, and integrated under a future regulatory framework that may be substantially less permissive than the current one.

The post-tournament fiscal cliff

A recurring pattern in major-event federal grant programs is the post-event fiscal cliff: the recipient builds a capability with one-time federal funding and then has to sustain that capability with its own resources after the event has passed. The 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, the 2010 G20 summits, and the 2018 Super Bowl host cities all illustrate the pattern. The capability decays unless the recipient finds a sustaining funding source within twelve to eighteen months of the event.

For the FIFA World Cup Grant Program, the cliff is essentially built into the program design: the funding is event-specific, and the host city's obligation to sustain the funded capability is limited. For the C-UAS program, however, the cliff is real. The recipient that uses C-UAS funds to acquire sensor equipment, train analysts, and stand up a 24/7 monitoring capability will face an annual sustainment cost of substantial size after the FY2026 funding is exhausted. Recipients should be modeling that sustainment cost into their FY2027 and FY2028 budget plans now. The jurisdictions that build the capability without planning for its sustainment will find themselves, in 2028, with depreciating equipment, departing trained personnel, and no replacement funding stream.

What to do this week

Three operational moves are time-sensitive. Contact the State Administrative Agency to identify the state's C-UAS submission strategy and the SAA's internal sub-application deadlines. Identify the regional homeland-security coordinating body — typically the Urban Area Working Group in cities with active UASI funding, or the regional fusion center in jurisdictions without — and confirm that the applicant's planned C-UAS submission is coordinated with the regional posture. For host cities, designate the lead city agency for the FIFA World Cup Grant Program application and confirm with the host venue authority that the application's scope aligns with the venue's security plan.

The two NOFOs together represent the federal government's largest concentrated investment in non-federal counter-UAS and major-event security capability in two decades. The window for high-quality applications is short, the SAA channel for most non-federal applicants is congested, and the pre-issuance political review regime that will govern any follow-on funding is more restrictive than the current one. Recipients that move on the FY2026 cycle will build capability under a regulatory regime they may not see again.