theathleticuk
For much of this summers World Cup, fans have been taken aback by the stadiums across North America.
The heritage and crackling atmosphere of the Azteca in Mexico City.
The open North End at Lumen Field, providing a scenic view of downtown Seattle.
The hyper-modernity of SoFi Stadium near Los Angeles and the gauche excess of AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Advertisement Then, we have MetLife Stadium, home of the New York Giants and New York Jets, marooned next to marshlands, a slew of parking lots and the American Dream Mall, the second largest in the United States.
It has a charmless exterior, clunky transportation links, and a playing field described by World Cup players and coaches as dry, hard, uneven, and a bit like artificial turf.
When The Athletics team of soccer writers ranked all 16 venues a week into the tournament, MetLife finished last, with its aesthetics scoring 4/10 and transport and location 3/10.
Oh, and a train ride from Manhattan to get there for a World Cup game is $98 return (73).
Yet on Sunday afternoon, the eyes of the world turn to New York/New Jersey Stadium, to give it its FIFA moniker, when the World Cup final between Spain and Argentina begins at 3 pm local time (8 pm BST).
Despite MetLifes obvious drawbacks, it was the venue of choice for FIFA for the most popular sporting event on the planet, with a global audience expected to exceed one billion people.
The most obvious appeal is the time slot, which works well for European, North American, and South American broadcasters, though less well for Asian markets.
Mexicos Azteca Stadium, the largest-capacity stadium of this World Cup (ahead of MetLife by a couple of hundred seats), was not considered, as the final was always going to be in the United States.
The joint bid in 2018 set out that 75 percent of games would be played in the U.S., with the remaining 25 percent shared between Canada and Mexico.
SoFi Stadium had a half-chance but the fiercest competition came from Dallas.
The venue is the home of the Dallas Cowboys, often known as Jerry World, named after the Cowboys owner, Jerry Jones.
Before an announcement on a Sunday evening in February 2024, neither the joint New York/New Jersey host committee nor their Dallas counterparts knew for certain who would win out.
Advertisement In the weeks beforehand, a British tabloid newspaper reported that Dallas had won the race.
Craig Davis, president and CEO of VisitDallas, the citys visitors bureau, told D Magazine before the announcement that the Dallas team heard gossip that FIFA leaked this in an effort to get New York City to up their bid.
Davis added: Not saying thats true.
Just saying there were rumors.
Monica Paul, executive director of the Dallas Sports Commission and head of the Dallas World Cup host committee, told The Athletic in May 2026 that those pre-emptive reports about Dallas securing the final led to questions asking how her team had lost the final, but the reality is they never had it to lose in the first place.
We laid it all out on the table, she insisted.
I dont think there is anything else here that we could have done to secure it.
The New York/New Jersey charm offensive began as far back as 2018, when Phil Murphy, in his first year as New Jersey governor, hosted a FIFA delegation at the New York Red Bulls stadium in Harrison, New Jersey.
The 25,000-seat venue was deemed a more intimate and charming setting than the cavernous MetLife Stadium for warm introductions.
The Murphys had a soccer background, as founding owners of NWSL side Gotham, while Phil Murphy was also part of the doomed U.S.
bid to host the 2018 or 2022 World Cups.
He saw the merits of partnering with New York City a partnership intended to be 50-50 on costs, according to those intimately involved in the discussions even if it hasnt always been straightforward between the parties, or indeed in their relationship with FIFA.
The thesis was that New Jersey had the infrastructure, high-quality training complexes, and pre-existing soccer relationships.
New York City would bring the razzmatazz and the postcard landmarks.
Advertisement We knew from the start we could not win this without New York City, said one person involved in the planning, speaking on condition of anonymity like others in this piece to protect relationships.
As previously reported on The Athletic, the Murphys, in partnership first with New York mayor Bill De Blasio and then with Eric Adams, courted FIFA president Gianni Infantino, holding a series of coffees, dinners and Zoom calls.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul joined Infantino for a particularly significant lunch at the Plaza Hotel near Central Park, alongside NFL team owners and regional business executives.
Before being awarded the final, another lunch was held, this time in the Equinox Hotel at Hudson Yards.
Jared Kushner, the New Jerseyan son-in-law of President Donald Trump and a close friend of Infantino, helped convene a whos who of regional CEOs and deal-makers to woo the FIFA president.
Trump was not in office at that stage but Kushners relationship with Infantino had endured.
Kathryn Wilde, one of New Yorks most famous conduits to the super-rich and former leader of the Partnership for New York City, also played a key role.
The lunch was in Manhattan, but deliberately overlooked the Hudson River, providing views of Jersey in the distance.
There was never any doubt whatsoever that we were going to pitch as aggressively as humanly possible to get the World Cup final, said one source close to the New York/New Jersey partnership.
The Murphys called in support.
Tammy Murphy asked Robert De Niro, a New Yorker, to narrate a three-minute 20-second video to present to a FIFA delegation.
It began with Lady Liberty, her torch reaching to the heavens, described as a beacon shining a light on dreams.
We dare to dream big, really big, because that is what we do in New York and New Jersey, said De Niro, one of the countrys most celebrated actors, in a video viewed by The Athletic.
We dream of welcoming the worlds greatest game to the worlds most spectacular stage.
He called the sport football, rather than soccer, and said it had already captured the backyards and schoolyards.
The video cut to the Empire State Building.
Are we ready to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup? De Niro asked.
Come on, baby, we were born ready.
Our time is now.
Back in 2023, President Joe Biden resided in the Oval Office and New York/New Jersey sought to emphasize the diversity and multiculturalism of its bid.
The video featured pride flags and had children in different languages saying Welcome, world.
The Murphys would regularly press home the strength of the diasporas in the region, telling FIFA they would drive ticket demand and bring color and enthusiasm to the tournament.
Advertisement De Niro told FIFA: Bring us your superstars, your diehards, your big dreamers, your future heroes..
This is the game.
This is the place.
In the fall of 2023, rival billionaires took turns at wooing Infantino.
In Arlington, Texas, Jones hosted Infantino in the owners suite when the Dallas Cowboys faced the New York Jets.
Infantinos face was splashed across the venues giant screen.
On the same trip, the FIFA president also met with Texas governor Greg Abbott and Jets owners Chris and Woody Johnson.
He then popped up in New York City, where he met with Gov.
Murphy and Mayor Eric Adams, before being hosted for a game at MetLife Stadium between the Jets and New England Patriots.
Infantino, keen to take on learnings from U.S.
sports, also visited the commissioners of the NFL, NHL and MLB, all of whom have their headquarters in New York City.
The New York/New Jersey bid lobbied FIFA hard.
It commissioned a poll from YouGov in the summer of 2023, which found that soccer fans in the U.S.
preferred attending a match in the New Jersey/New York region over any other.
The bid also studied weather patterns in both New Jersey and Texas, underlining that outdoor fan festivals and shoulder programming may be more feasible away from the Dallas heat although nobody foresaw the build-up to the final would be dominated by concerns about air quality.
It also provided FIFA with estimates of the likelihood of thunderstorms in mid-July and, importantly for FIFA, whether seats could be covered for VVIPs FIFAs accreditation system brackets people as Very Very Important People rather than simply Very Important People.
FIFA was also shown studies on how New York and New Jersey co-operated on security and transportation during Taylor Swifts concert at MetLife Stadium and during Popes visits to the region.
It also outlined learnings from the failure of the Super Bowl at MetLife in 2014, when transportation chaos left fans exasperated.
Multiple sources familiar with the discussions believe the final call came down to Infantino, but senior executives including Heimo Schirgi, COO of the 2026 World Cup, and Mattias Grafstrom, FIFAs secretary general were also involved.
MetLife being an open-air stadium also worked in its favor.
Both Dallas and SoFi are temperature-controlled and have roofs, which brought concerns about how to protect a playing field across a 39-day tournament.
Advertisement FIFAs senior pitch manager Alan Ferguson told The Athletic this week: My biggest risk was that despite all our best efforts, because they (the AT&T and SoFi) are in a completely indoor environment, and it had never been done to that length of time, to shut the sun out for that long was a huge gamble.
I wasnt prepared to take that gamble.
If somebody had offered me an open stadium like Boston, New York, or San Francisco, then I was always going to go down that route because I get the natural elements.
The stadiums..
are fantastically stunning..
But if you have a yellow pitch, then you get a slightly weaker plant as well, even with the hybrid support being present, so its a huge risk to take.
I dont think anybody involved in the discussions was prepared to put the World Cup final at that level of risk.
You have to think about the 22 guys that are going to contest the biggest game on the planet.
The right decision was made.
Youll see that come Sunday.
Youll see a fantastic surface.
Fans also have the opportunity to buy a section of the pitch, as FIFAs website began selling parts of the MetLife turf last week for between $450 and $3,000 apiece, to be shipped to buyers after the final.
FIFA needs to get off our turf, literally, said assemblyman Michael Inganamort Friday in comments reported by WRNJ Radio.
This is state-owned property.
FIFA cant just sell off the soccer pitch without permission.
What is happening is not just a bad deal for the taxpayers of New Jersey, its illegal.
New Jersey governor Mikie Sherrill, who took office this year and could not understand why her taxpayers were being asked to foot the bill for a tournament that Infantino has claimed will raise $11 billion in revenue for soccers governing body, was also critical.
FIFA heard touch grass and said, How much can we charge for it?, wrote Gov.
Sherrill on Twitter.
The Athletic has since learned that the joint New York/New Jersey host committee will receive a cut of the revenue, with the turf previously receiving $13 million in investment from New Jersey taxpayers.
Advertisement FIFA is, however, still taking a certain amount of risk with the field, given criticisms of MetLifes pitch during the tournament and the prospect that the half-time show, featuring Madonna, Shakira, BTS and Justin Bieber, will take place at least partly on the pitch.
According to the official bid book, MetLifes capacity for the World Cup is 80,663, while Dallas houses 70,649.
Considering the World Cup final is on course to become the most expensive sports ticket in history, FIFA was always likely to be tempted by the extra revenue opportunities from selling 10,000 additional tickets close to New York City, the richest city in the world.
Speaking this week, Chad Estis, Dallas Cowboys EVP of business operations, said he will always be disappointed Dallas did not host the final.
Im so biased, he acknowledged.
But I just felt we were best-suited for it.
Look, who knows what can happen with the weather.
Those are great stadiums, but to play the final in perfect conditions I thought was the right thing.
And I also just thought being in the center (of North America)..
He said there was no satisfying explanation.
Theres just an element of, when youre not from here, you think of New York.
I think that probably is the answer.