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Alexander: 2026 World Cup will likely skip SoFi Stadium, and here’s why

October 21, 2023

The world according to Jim:

• Hopefully, you haven’t yet made concrete plans to witness 2026 World Cup matches in Inglewood. And yes, I know it’s a little less than three years out, but there are those who love to plan ahead.

Alas, that classification obviously doesn’t include those who designed SoFi Stadium. SoCal’s state-of-the-art venue is not state-of-the-art enough for FIFA, part of the reason why a stadium that was previously considered a lock to host tournament games is now apparently out of the running. …

• There are two stories circulating as to why, and both come down to money. That figures, considering FIFA exists less to oversee the world of soccer (or football, if you prefer) than to get its grubby hands on as much cash in as many ways as is humanly possible. Exhibit A is the supersized 48-nation field for 2026 – more games, more loot, right? – but the endless parade of tournaments and friendlies wedged between league matches suggests most of the sports administrators are happily following FIFA’s example. …

• As we know, Stan Kroenke’s stadium is built for football of the NFL variety, but its dimensions are not wide enough for a regulation soccer pitch. An NFL field is 120 yards long (counting the end zones) and 53.3 yards wide, compared to soccer’s 115-by-74 dimensions. Yet SoFi has hosted the sport before, including this year’s CONCACAF Gold Cup final and a friendly between Kroenke’s Arsenal and FC Barcelona during the European powers’ annual summertime Cash Grab in the Colonies. Those matches were played on fields that were more narrow than normal – natural sod, by the way, laid over the artificial turf – without incident.

But FIFA is insistent on a regulation pitch for its showcase event, and to do so at SoFi would require removing the field suites and a few rows of field-level seating. As ESPN Deportes’ John Sutcliffe reported earlier this week, “The information that I have is that SoFi Stadium is no longer going to be a World Cup venue because the stadium’s owner [Kroenke] said, ‘For what it is going to cost me, best skip it’.”

• Construction on the Inglewood stadium began in November 2016. The selection of the U.S., Mexico and Canada as 2026 tri-hosts took place in June of 2018. Still, maybe there should have been greater provisions for soccer in the original plans. …

• The other angle is that Kroenke, as the venue’s owner, is unhappy enough with the terms of money distribution from FIFA – particularly the lack of “commercial assets as advance payment,” as Martina Alcheva of World Soccer Talk put it – to back away. Given that this combined with even temporary renovation means Kroenke would lose money in the process, walking away shouldn’t be unexpected. …

• Then again, Adam Crafton of The Athletic reported that Kroenke isn’t the only stadium operator on this continent resisting FIFA’s ideal of income distribution (which translates to Most For Me, Scraps For Thee). The organization apparently got used to Qatar’s willingness to pay for darned near everything leading up to the 2022 World Cup, and wasn’t ready for the pushback here. …

• This would seem to be good news for Pasadena. If SoFi is truly out, the Rose Bowl should be back in play to host games, since L.A. was officially announced as one of the 11 U.S. host cities in May. Pasadena played host to games in the 1994 men’s World Cup including the final, (a scoreless draw that Brazil won over Italy on penalty kicks) and the 1999 Women’s World Cup (including a memorable final, i.e. the match that made Brandi Chastain a legend). …

• Would FIFA really snub the second-largest city in the U.S. and the biggest and most diverse sports market on this continent just because Stan Kroenke said no? You’d like to think good sense would prevail. But this is FIFA, with a president in Gianni Infantino who has been known to step in it from time to time. So anything’s possible. …

• Elsewhere, should we refer to Michigan’s Wolverines as the Houston Astros of college football? No bats or trashcans were involved, but the sign-stealing allegations here involve in-person advance scouting, a violation of NCAA Bylaw 11.6.1. Then again, this might be a case of the NCAA’s enforcement arm nailing a school for what it can prove to make up for all of the things it suspects are happening but can’t prove (which wouldn’t be unusual among big-time football and basketball programs). …

• Meanwhile, the NCAA continues to lobby for antitrust legislation, even though both houses of Congress have far more to worry about (and one of them is currently frozen in place). Given that the courts could ultimately rule that athletes are not only employees but are entitled to a hefty cut of past TV money, NCAA president Charlie Baker’s insistence that athletes should receive “special status that would affirm they are not employees” does not embrace the reality of College Sports Inc. in 2023.

Calls for a national standard on NIL come with the related, flawed assumption that college sports is a singular industry.
Fixating on NIL, running to Congress for antitrust exemptions… these are distraction tactics and a way to avoid the job of actual, substantive redesign.

— Victoria Jackson (@HistoryRunner) October 17, 2023

(Especially for, say, West Coast Olympic sport athletes who will have to squeeze into that middle seat in coach to fly to competitions in the Central and Eastern time zones beginning in 2024.) …

• Sudden thought: Pro basketball writers already have to look it up every time they have to spell Giannis Antetokounmpo. Now they’re going to have to do the same for 7-foot-4 San Antonio rookie Victor Wembanyama. (And you wonder why the second reference generally tends to be “Giannis” or “Wemby.”) …

• And among the leftovers from this week’s TNT network videoconference was this from Reggie Miller on his first meeting with, uh, Wemby before a San Antonio Spurs preseason game:

“My son was like, ‘Dad, you got to stand back to back because I’ve got to see it, how much taller (is he)?’ Because, you know, my son’s 10, and he thinks I’m the Jolly Green Giant. I’m like, ‘Son, you have no idea.’

“I felt like I was in the third grade.”

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Orange County Register

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Alexander: 2026 World Cup will likely skip SoFi Stadium, and here’s why

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