IS IT A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD?
Questions remain on shared costs and duties for the 2026 FIFA World Cup
After an exciting few weeks in Australia and New Zealand, the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup drew to a close Sunday as Spain hoisted the championship trophy for the first time. And while some soccer fans are taking a break from the patriotic sport, others are already looking ahead to the next tournament.
That would be the 2026 FIFA World Cup in North America — and at least a handful of those games will be played in East Rutherford.
But while the tournament’s stop in the tri-state area is planned to be cohosted by New York and New Jersey, it appears to be premature to call the bistate effort a partnership.
NorthJersey.com and The Record made multiple public record requests to New Jersey state agencies for a contract or other documentation that outlines how the two states would share costs and responsibilities that come with hosting the world’s largest sporting event.
Requests made to the governor’s office, the Economic Development Authority, the Department of Community Affairs and the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority provided no responsive records for contracts or agreements with Office of the Mayor of New York City or any New York city agencies or entities regarding a partnership to host the FIFA World Cup.
From setting up a host committee to working on the stadium, even hiring contractors and approving designs has been a multi-pronged operation.
Much of the burden will fall to the NJSEA and its Board of Commissioners. The authority is responsible for operations at the MetLife Sports Complex, including the stadium that houses the New York Jets and Giants.
They’ve already hired construction companies and architects to get the stadium into shape.
And most of those expenditures have borne considerable costs. New Jersey taxpayers are on the hook for the tournament to the tune of millions while New York is merely lending its name — at least so far.
Amaris Cockfield, a spokesperson for Mayor Eric Adams, said, “New York City has acknowledged its continued cooperation with NJSEA and the state of New Jersey in the shared commitment of hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup.”
But preparations for the tournament made on the New Jersey side of the Hudson have been more tangible, and costly.
Last summer, the authority received $30 million in taxpayer funds to plan designs and upgrades at MetLife Stadium and the surrounding property. That will include a contract worth nearly $16 million — $15,989,722 exactly — for expansion of MetLife Stadium.
The authority has previously said construction plans will be reviewed by the Department of Community Affairs as part of the permitting process. The authority has also said it “regularly coordinates with Trenton on World Cuprelated matters.”
In addition to the expansion work, that $30 million includes $5 million for the host committee in the form of a revolving loan and $669,497 that has been paid to the stadium for reimbursement of costs related to design and pre-construction work.
Brian Aberback, a spokesperson for the authority, noted that in a resolution approved by the authority’s board, New York “agreed to share equally with the NJSEA and the state of New Jersey in the overall costs incurred as part of the effort to fulfill the shared goal of hosting the FIFA World Cup 2026.”
That resolution, approved last November, says the city will share “equally with New Jersey in overall costs … which may include sharing in the responsibility for providing an initial source of funding” for the host committee by “contributing to any costs incurred by the NJSEA.”
Work to bring some of the games during the 2026 FIFA World Cup to East Rutherford has been underway for years. The effort began in 2017, after a delay caused by the infamous 2015 FIFA corruption case over the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 tournaments to Russia and Qatar.
This will be the first time the first men’s tournament is split among multiple countries, with games in the United States, Canada and Mexico. In June, FIFA announced the 16 game venues: East Rutherford, Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle in the United States; Guadalajara, Mexico City and Monterrey in Mexico; and Toronto and Vancouver in Canada.
But getting the stadium — and the region, with $35 million being spent by NJ Transit for designs — to meet the strict requirements set out by FIFA is not a quick task.
Stadiums selected for the World Cup could range from 40,000 seats for group and early-stage games of the tournament to a 80,000-seat minimum for the opening and final matches. The semifinal venue must have a capacity of 60,000, according to the 2026 bidding guide.
The all-important announcement of where the final will be held is expected to come this fall. In the past, every time the World Cup has been held in the United States — in 1994, 1999 and 2003 — the final has been played in California, but reports earlier this year from The Sunday Times in the London said SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles may not be eligible to host the final match because of not meeting the proper requirements. The field is too narrow to meet FIFA’s specifications, and widening it would remove seats that would drop the venue’s capacity to below 80,000.
MetLife Stadium, which hosted the Copa America final in 2016, has a capacity of more than 82,000. The venue has never been the site of a World Cup game. Matches played in East Rutherford at previous World Cups were held at the venue’s predecessor, Giants Stadium.
Officials did acknowledge that a legal agreement between New York and New Jersey is in the works and that it will define their joint hosting and financial obligations.