The FIFA World Cup will bring four national teams to the Kansas City area and place six matches and a Fan Festival in the heart of the city, organizers say. England, Argentina and the Netherlands — three teams ranked in the top 10 — will train in the metro area, while Algeria will be based in nearby Lawrence, Kansas, a college town with a population under 100,000, according to Sporting Kansas City officials and local organizers.
Kansas City was not an obvious choice, organizers acknowledged. The metro is the least populous of the 11 U.S. host cities and has never staged the Olympics or a Super Bowl. The training site England selected was not listed in FIFA’s catalog of training grounds when the team first visited, the story said. Still, city leaders say long-term investment in soccer, a central location and local hospitality helped win the bids.
City officials note that since 2009 nearly $700 million has been invested in soccer infrastructure in the Kansas City metro, and they credit that development with attracting top teams who will train on the region’s fields. Organizers also pointed to experience staging large events: the 2023 NFL draft drew more than 300,000 people, offering proof the city could host sizable crowds.
The push to land the teams involved detailed planning, according to Alan Dietrich, a former Sporting KC executive. Dietrich said organizers tailored routes for FIFA visitors, staffed the airport with volunteers to create a welcoming impression and arranged a youth scrimmage outside a downtown hotel so delegates would see local enthusiasm for the sport. “Every sight, smell and touch — just every sense, we wanted to appeal to them,” Dietrich said.
Sporting Kansas City president and CEO Jake Reid recounted more informal diplomacy: after a tour and dinner with England officials, England CEO Mark Bullingham joked that the Americans would get tattoos if England won the tournament, a comment Reid and Dietrich embraced. Pam Kramer, CEO of KC2026, said the region’s leaders are aware of the challenge and excited by the scale: “At the end of this, we’re all going to get to say we were part of the biggest thing that ever happened here,” she said.
