By Miguel Gutierrez and Leonardo Benassatto
LOS ANGELES, June 12 (Reuters) – The global soccer spotlight turned to Los Angeles on Friday, with organizers hoping that enthusiasm for the first World Cup tournament on U.S. soil since 1994 would outweigh concerns about ticket pricing and entry visas that overshadowed much of the run-up.
Co-hosts Mexico got the party started on Thursday, while Toronto welcomed fans to Canada’s first match on Friday afternoon. The U.S. comes next, with an opening ceremony at SoFi Stadium featuring pop star Katy Perry at 4:30 p.m. local time (2330 GMT), followed by the U.S. soccer team getting their tournament underway with a match against Paraguay.
Soccer remains a relative minority sport in the U.S., with around a third of Americans telling pollsters they planned to watch the World Cup, well below many other competing nations. The sporting focus in the last week has been on the dramatic run of the New York Knicks in the NBA finals.
At a World Cup-themed event at the LA Live complex in downtown Los Angeles, visitors Reuters spoke to said they weren’t even soccer fans. They were there to catch a glimpse of a former NFL player who was participating, they said.
But soccer fever is growing, especially as fans pour in from around the world. Midtown Manhattan was a blaze of color on Thursday and Friday as Knicks fans in navy basketball jerseys mixed amiably with yellow-clad Brazil soccer fans banging drums and Mexican followers in jade green celebrating the first World Cup win of the tournament.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani – wearing a Knicks vest under his suit jacket – encouraged New Yorkers to attend the fan festivals and soccer exhibitions taking place across the city.
“When we celebrate the World Cup, we are celebrating a working-class sport and the working people who play it,” said Mamdani, a longtime fan of English Premier League champions Arsenal. “It is the rare occasion that brings the world together.”
BAGPIPES AND STARS AND STRIPES
In Boston, Scottish fans entertained the neighbors near their Airbnb with an early-morning bagpipes recital, NBC10 Boston reported, while in Los Angeles U.S. supporters headed to the stadium dressed from top to toe in red, white and blue, chanting “USA, USA.”
The build-up to Friday’s kickoff has been clouded by a number of concerns, including over the issuing of visas under the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, which has taken a hard line on immigration issues.
Some fans have expressed anger or hesitancy about traveling to the U.S. following months of news reports of bans and restrictions, and a Somali referee was barred from entering this week.
Many supporters say the cost of attending has become prohibitive, with both ticket prices and travel rates skyrocketing.
A dilemma over how to accommodate the Iranian soccer team after the U.S. and Israel launched attacks on Iran in February eventually wound up with a plan for them to train in Mexico and cross into the U.S. for their matches.
It is still unclear what will happen in Seattle on June 26, when Iran are due to play Egypt in a match that local organizers have said will be an LGBT Pride game, a designation both countries’ football associations have vociferously opposed.
And there have been worries about the North American summer heat.
“We play in the summer all day, so Brazil, I think we’ll be fine, but teams like Norway and Sweden will have a bad time,” said Brazilian fan David Scarton in New York as the temperature hit 34 degrees Celsius (93 F).
Waiting to get into the stadium in LA, 67-year-old U.S. supporter Gabriel Aguilar shrugged off the worries.
“I’ve been waiting for this day for over 35 years, I went to the first World Cup back in Texas in 1994, and this excitement and all this patriotism wasn’t there,” he said.
“One day we are going to be like the Mexico fans who really embrace the whole atmosphere. We are not there yet but we are getting close.”
(Reporting by Miguel Gutiérrez, Leonardo Benassatto and Danielle Broadway in Los Angeles; additional reporting by Christine Kiernan, Janis Laizans and Kurt Hall in New York; writing by Rosalba O’Brien; editing by Clare Fallon and Toby Davis)
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