Former West Ham United co-chairman David Sullivan has attended their Carabao Cup match against Portsmouth despite being advised he should stay away from home games at London Stadium.
West Ham are in the opening round of the EFL Cup for the first time in 15 years following last season’s relegation from the Premier League.
The match against Portsmouth is the first the club have played since the allegations against Sullivan were reported.
A joint investigation by BBC Panorama and The Times revealed Sullivan has been banned from contact with West Ham’s women’s and youth teams for the past three years because of safeguarding concerns.
Despite resigning from his position as co-chairman in June, Sullivan remains the largest single shareholder at the club with a 38.8% stake.
I can’t answer the first question, although I wouldn’t bet against a three-peat.
As for the second question, if I were former Dodgers owner and aerial tram godfather Frank McCourt, I’d fasten my seat belt, because the gondola is about to hit some heavy turbulence.
The gondola would slice through a section of L.A. State Historic Park, wipe out dozens of trees and trample a space that was carefully designed with years of community input. And the mounting opposition now includes seven former state park officials and four former members of the state Park and Recreation Commission.
The former staffers have sent “don’t you dare” letters to the commission, and one of them argued that the view of the downtown skyline would be cluttered and commercialized.
“Gondola cars encased in digital ads, flying 26 feet overhead every 25-30 seconds would irreparably impair the vista, and the sense of calm and escape from urban life,” wrote former state parks director Ruth Coleman.
The four former commissioners have signed a joint letter arguing that the gondola proposal “would enable a private development to permanently and irreparably shrink, degrade, and destroy the integrity of a state park.”
They’re speaking up now because the state is considering an amendment to the park’s general plan that would allow for “consideration and review of the proposed Los Angeles Aerial Rapid Transit (LA ART) gondola project.”
That was McCourt’s brainchild, back in 2018, and he’s a guy with lobbying muscle and friends in high places. McCourt later handed off the project to an environmental group, but the idea is still to deliver fans to Dodger Stadium, where he has financial interests.
A hearing on the matter is expected in the fall, and it’s sure to be a cage fight. Last December, throngs of supporters and foes squared off at a raucous Metro board meeting. The board ultimately green-lighted the gondola, which the L.A. City Council has almost unanimously opposed. So the showdown scheduled for this fall could be at least as interesting as the World Series.
For the record, I’m not anti-gondola. They’re fun, right?
But I’m not buying the proponents’ claim that this is a public transit project. They say several thousand people would soar up to Chavez Ravine and help relieve the miserable traffic in and out of parking lots, which McCourt took part ownership of after selling the team back in 2012 for a cool $2 billion.
But how much is gained if gondola riders ditch the free shuttle buses that now run to the ballpark from Union Station?
Then there’s a much bigger question, which my colleague Bill Shaikin explored in 2022: Is the gondola phase one of a plan to develop stadium property into some kind of Dodgertown commercial extravaganza?
Unclear, but let’s not be naive.
A Dodgers executive told Shaikin the Dodgers support the gondola project, although they are “really not involved” in it. But we’re talking about fabulously wealthy people whose only real job is figuring out how to make more money.
Team McCourt has suggested the gondola will be built with private money, perhaps from selling advertising rights, and that rides will be free to Dodger ticket holders.
But how would any of that pencil out with Dodger Stadium closed most of the year, and with gondola traffic chipping away at revenue from parking fees that start at a monstrous $40?
There’s something they’re not telling us, and if you think there’s no threat of taxpayers getting dinged one way or another at some point, you’ve either been hit in the head by a line drive or you’ve had too many $18 beers at Dodger Stadium.
If you want more details on the history of the gondola gambit, I suggest you check out all the reporting by Shaikin, who has been on the case for years, and offered up a far better idea than a gondola: Make it easier for fans to walk or bike to the ballpark.
But let’s get back to L.A. State Historic Park.
Much of the early gondola opposition was from Chinatown residents who didn’t like the idea of living under what would resemble an amusement park ride. But on Wednesday evening, I met with some people whose focus is the impact on the park.
“All of these trees would be gone,” said Sean Woods, a former state parks employee who penned one of the letters to Sacramento, and who was involved in some of the 65 public meetings and workshops at which community members helped with the design and mission of the park.
We were in a shady spot, where the gondola would run parallel to the existing Metro train tracks. There’d be supporting towers on park property, with cables dangling overhead, and a gondola station just outside the park. The gondola would occupy only a small slice of the 32-acre space, but it would be a visible distraction from every inch of the park.
“I think it’s a betrayal of California State Parks’ commitment to the communities that surround this park, that fought dearly for this park,” Woods said.
He was reflecting on a time when the former railyard was destined to become a giant industrial warehouse complex. And this followed the history of Chinatown having been relocated to make way for Union Station, and residents of Chavez Ravine being relocated to make way for Dodger Stadium.
Jon Christensen, Sean Woods and Susan Lai chat at Los Angeles State Historic Park.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
Joining us was Susan Lai, who along with Woods represents Friends of Los Angeles State Historic Park.
Lai is small in stature, but she swings for the fences.
“This is called a historic park for a reason,” she said, “and McCourt … has no historical connection to the park, no community connection to the park, and no cultural connection to the park.”
Lai is steeped in the archaeology of the park, the Gabrielino establishment here, the Zanja Madre irrigation line that served the early pueblo.
As we strolled, she told me this is another case of politically connected profiteers trying to impose their will on the local community, and she won’t stand for it. Lai is carrying a torch lit by her husband, Collin, who died last year at the age of 96 after years of fighting to make the park a reality.
“She’s brought an extra fire to this whole effort, and really inspired a lot of young people,” said Jon Christensen, gondola foe and co-founder of the Los Angeles Parks Alliance.
Christensen led Lai, Woods and me to the top of a grassy hill. When the park opened in 2006, I thought it seemed too flat and shapeless, too hemmed in by Broadway and Spring. But it later expanded, the trees filled in and the whole park grew on me as a place to see and feel Los Angeles.
I loved two things most of all.
The unstructured activities enjoyed by a broad mix of people picnicking on the grass, napping under a tree, kicking a ball around or doing what 10 guys were doing Wednesday evening — playing a game of Frisbee football in the meadow below us.
And the unfettered skyline view, which could soon be lost. And consider the optics: Dodgers fans soaring over a public park enjoyed by families who might need to hit the lottery to afford tickets to a game.
It was almost Dodger game time, and if the gondolas were up and running, they’d be close enough overhead that you could hit one with a tomato.
On Saturday at Dodger Stadium, as the sun dipped below the horizon, Fuerza Regida took center stage for a career-defining show, delivering cinematic time-travel segments and hints of off-stage controversy.
The Mexican American band joined an illustrious list of legendary acts — Elton John, the Beatles, Michael Jackson and Beyoncé to name a few — to perform at the iconic venue built on Chavez Ravine, the shallow canyon that served as home to thousands of Mexican American families forcibly displaced in the 1950s for the sake of progress.
In June, the San Bernardino quintet kicked off its This Is Our Dream stadium tour across nine U.S. cities to close out its manifestation project “111xpantia.” The 2025 LP peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 inMay 2025, becoming the highest-charting Spanish language album by a duo of band ever. It also comes a year after the band sold out the Madison Square Garden and the Hollywood Bowl in consecutive nights.
But the stadium tour — which will end Aug. 7 in New York’s Citi Field — does more than showcase the band’s recent mainstream success. It honors the years of grit it took to get there.
“It’s proof that dreams are worth chasing, fighting for, even when it feels hard or impossible,” said Khrystian Ramos, the band’s rhythm guitarist.
As part of the set design, a massive prop car stereo was affixed atop the stage. Inspired by the 1985 film “Back to the Future,” it doubled as a time traveling machine. But instead of a DeLorean, the band opted for a Chevrolet 454 SS pickup truck, a car that symbolizes the American dream for lead singerJesús Ortiz Paz, better known as JOP, and is largely associated with the group’s corrido forefather, the late Chalino Sanchez.
The first stop in Fuerza Regida‘s journey to the past was 2018, as the band performed its breakthrough hit, “Radicamos En South Central,” a song about gradually building a drug empire that went viral on YouTube. Shortly after its release, the band signed with independent label Rancho Humilde and followed up with “Sigo Chambeando,” a bouncy corrido that embodies the band’s “never stop hustling” ethos.
It’s a mindset that has served them well.
The more than a decade-long road to selling out Dodger Stadium certainly wasn’t easy for the corrido tumbado band, which formed in 2015 and first built a fan base by performing cover songs at local parties across the Inland Empire. .
Jose “Pelon” Garcia, left, Jesus Ortiz Paz and Khrystian Ramos of Fuerza Regida perform during their This Is Our Dream Stadium tour at Dodger Stadium on July 18 in Los Angeles.
(Carlin Stiehl/For De Los)
“We got kicked out of a gig one time. The guy literally told us that he didn’t like our music,” said Ramos. “That drive home was a key moment in our career. It showed us that it’s not all stars and rainbows.”
Ramos started the band alongside the band’s 12-string guitarist, Samuel Jáimez. The two met at martial arts school as kids and kept in touch in the years that followed, jamming out together after their 9 to 5 .
The band’s name was originally Raimez — a portmanteau of Ramos and Jáimez— but was later changed to accomodate the arrival of lead singer JOP.
“I remember exactly [where we came up with the name]. We’re driving down the 10 passing Mount Vernon Avenue,” said Ramos. “Fuerza Regida, a governing force. Wherever you step, the presence is felt.”
That certainly was the case on that warm July evening as the more than 56,000 fans in attendance chanted the band’s name in unison.
“Not in a thousand years, I didn’t see it until it crept up. It was like alcohol,” said Jáimez about the band’s global success.
Sousaphone player José García, also known as Pelon, never imagined that leaving behind a steady job to pursue his musical dreams would pan out like this.
“I worked in construction Monday through Friday and we had gigs with Fuerza Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I practically had two jobs,” said García. “I had life insurance. I had benefits, 401(k), all that. So I left a really good job so I could join Fuerza Regida.”
In 2022, the band added its fifth member, Moisés López, who plays thetololoche — a small upright bass. López, who contributed to the 2020 track “Vamos Bien” as a bass player, said that JOP had asked him to learn the instrument if he wanted to stay with the group. “He bought me it. I picked it up real quick and from there it’s history.”
Jesus Ortiz Paz, left, and Moises Lopez of Fuerza Regida perform during their This Is Our Dream stadium tour at Dodger Stadium on July 18 in Los Angeles.
(Carlin Stiehl/For De Los)
At the concert, the time machine took attendees back to 2022, Fuerza Regida’s bélico era marked by the corridos “Billete Grande” and “Igualito A Mi Apá” as well as its gentler viral hit “Bebe Dame,” the first Fuerza Regida song to reach the Billboard 100, peaking at No. 25.
“We went from clubs to theaters to arenas. I’ve never thought we would get this far,” said López. “We’ve always said hard work beats talent.”
But it isn’t just drive that has shaped Fuerza Regida’s career — time and time again, the band has proved to be adaptable and experimental, always evolving its sound and drawing from a wide range of influences.
2023 saw the release of “Pa Las Baby’s y Belikeada,” a party record that fuses trap, pop and EDM, and features the player anthems “TQM” and “Sabor Fresa”; to complement the womanizer themes of the record, there was a baddie camera on stage, which panned to women in the audience.
As the band sang its 2023 ballad “Una Cerveza” — a song about getting drunk to forget a lost love— a girl across my way called her ex and lifted her phone up in the air so that he could hear its heartbreaking lyrics. Then she hung up.
The Dodger Stadium show felt like a massive celebration, not just for the band but for música mexicana as a whole. Special guest performances throughout the night included Los Gemelos de Sinaloa, Calle 24, Chino Pacas, Clave Especial and Chuyin — acts that have helped fuel the meteoric rise of the genre.
“I’m proud and grateful that la raza is finally doing it. We’re here to stay,” Jaimez said.
Though the show focused on Fuerza Regida’s past, there were also hints of what’s to come. The band’s relationship with its record label Rancho Humilde has become acrimonious and litigious. In recent months, JOP has repeatedly accused founder Jimmy Humilde of withholding royalties and sabotaging the band. In turn, the record mogul has claimed that the band is not fulfilling its contractual obligations. A bitter divorce feels imminent.
“The internet tells a lot of lies. False news. That supposedly someone won a lawsuit. But that lawsuit is still underway and we know who will win,” JOP told the audience before singing “Triston,” a track released at the start of 2026 that was immediately pulled from the streamers. “They took this song off the platform but they can’t stop us from singing the song here.”
In Japan, fans come up with a song for each player and sing it happily and relentlessly. Nootbaar played in the major leagues, not in the Japanese league, so he was not sure he would get a song until he came up to bat.
“I don’t know how everybody in the stadium knew how to do it,” the St. Louis Cardinals outfielder said Wednesday at Angel Stadium. “Everybody was chanting it. It was pretty awesome.”
Japan’s Lars Nootbaar, center, played for Team Japan in the 2023 World Baseball Classic.
(Eugene Hoshiko / Associated Press)
In Japan, baseball games are nine innings of songs and chants, drums and noise sticks. No excessively caffeinated in-game hosts. No scolding video commands to make some noise. The joyful sounds are organic, and they come from the fans.
Nootbaar attended Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s last game in Japan and absolutely raved about the energy in the stadium. Does he believe that kind of fan experience would translate to an American ballpark?
“I don’t see why not,” Nootbaar said. “It would probably have to start small, but it would be cool to integrate that.”
We’re starting small, and soon. A minor league team plans to launch in Irvine next year, and the entrepreneur behind it is pitching it as a way to provide fans with a taste of Asian baseball.
“We’re going to really lean into some of the innovation in fan experience that you’ve seen in Korea and Japan,” said Paul Freedman, co-founder of Innovation Baseball Partners.
“We’ll be the first, to our knowledge, to bring that as the fan experience of an American baseball team.”
The team would play in the Pioneer League, the independent league in which Freedman and his partners previously launched teams in Oakland and Long Beach. In Oakland, the ballpark is a pop-up. In Long Beach, the team plays at 70-year-old Blair Field.
The defending champions of Korea’s league last year held spring training in Irvine. More Koreans live there than in any city in the United States besides New York or Los Angeles.
Asian food will be available at the games, as will hot dogs.
On Tuesday, the Irvine City Council is scheduled to consider a five-year contract with Innovation Baseball Partners, under which the team could sell naming rights to the Great Park stadium and would split the revenue with the city 50-50. The agreement also provides a framework for potential expansion of the stadium from 1,300 to 3,000 seats.
Don Wakamatsu, who runs baseball operations for Freedman’s teams, was the first Asian-American manager in major league history and managed Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki with the Seattle Mariners.
Ichiro won’t be playing in Irvine — the Pioneer League limits players to no more than two years of professional experience — but Wakamatsu plans to tap into his network to ensure the team has an Asian manager or coach and a nucleus of Asian players.
Wakamatsu described Freedman’s model of minor league teams as “somewhere between conventional baseball and the Savannah Bananas” and believes the Asian style could take hold in Irvine.
“If we can truly capture some of that excitement and fan interaction,” Wakamatsu said, “I think we’ll get a deeper connection with the players.”
To help launch the Irvine team, Freedman tapped two Korean-Americans: Martin Kim, a onetime interpreter to former Dodgers pitcher Hyun-jin Ryu and international business development executive with the Dodgers and Major League Baseball; and Yugina Yun, an Orange County-raised sports executive that said she “begged” to join the team as its operations director.
“The element that we’d really like to bring forth is the idea that fans in the stands can impact a team,” Yun said. “We want them to feel like they’re a part of the culture from the ground up.
“We’re not manufacturing the experience. They are.”
If you watched the World Baseball Classic, or for that matter the World Cup, you don’t have to be sold on this. On the night before the World Cup final, Argentinian fans took over Times Square, singing and chanting and waving banners.
A sign outside this year’s WBC finals in Miami listed 16 “permissible instruments” (bongos, cowbells and tambourines welcome) and eight “prohibited instruments” (no airhorns, please). In Tijuana, where Dodgers icon Justin Turner is playing this season, airhorns buzz constantly, and games feature skits between innings.
“I think there is a lot of attention to how different cultures have taken America’s pastime and created experiences around it that are different than we have here,” Freedman said. “We’re excited to bring some of that back home.”
The governing body of football in Europe, Uefa, said it was investigating the role of both clubs during the events at the stadium.
It said charges against CSKA Sofia include damage to the stadium, throwing objects, racist and/or discriminatory behaviour, crowd disturbances and violating decent behaviour.
Charges against Derry City include effective invasion of the field of play, throwing objects, crowd disturbances and insufficient protection of the playing area against intruders.
In a statement, Derry City Football Club said it “unequivocally condemns the violence witnessed at tonight’s match”.
“The club is working closely with UEFA, the PSNI, CSKA Sofia and our security partners to establish the full facts surrounding the incidents,” it added.
Despite Anthony Gordon’s 55th-minute goal, Argentina fought back with two goals in the final minutes, taking Lionel Messi to his third World Cup final.
Appearing on BBC Breakfast on Thursday, July 16, an England fan spoke to presenters Naga Munchetty and Charlie Stayt about witnessing the devastating loss in the stadium.
Andy Payne travelled across the United States to watch every match with his wife Kirsty, and admitted she was left “destroyed”.
He said: “This is my third World Cup semi-final, and Kirsty’s second, and to say the least, we’re used to this disappointment. We came so close today, I thought we were going to do it.
“We’ve had a fantastic trip, England have played brilliantly well. Thomas Tuchel might get a lot of criticism for today but everything done so far has been great.
“We just couldn’t do it today, every single time England just don’t quite get there but that’s life.”
He went on: “As always with England, there’s tension. Frankly, what Tuchel has done is put his best team out, the best players he had who weren’t injured of the 11 went out. And this is the first time he didn’t change things early, it was late, it was getting on.
“When we saw the goal, my view and other people in the ground were the same, was this is a goal that is decided on one goal. We thought we’ve got one goal, we might get two, we’ve got them, we’ve done this.
“And unfortunately, I think Tuchel looked at his team and went, ‘well how am I going to improve this team?’ because the players that weren’t on the field either weren’t the best players or were injured.”
Talking about the atmosphere in Atlanta Stadium, Andy agreed it was “the most extraordinary place to be”.
He went on: “For me, it was the best atmosphere bar one. The Azteca where we beat Mexico, but listen, I’ve seen England play Argentina now in 1986… I was there, we were outnumbered that day. 1998, I was there, we were hugely outnumbered by Argentinians.
“Today we were hugely outnumbered, the atmosphere was unbelievable. Every single England fan who was there was behind the team.
“None of the England fans who were in that ground boo’ed the players. We were disappointed, of course, we lost the game from 1-nil up with six, seven minutes to play.
“We fell short, and that’s England really, isn’t it? But all the people around me were as disappointed as I was, but we’ve had a good tournament and the team spirit was unbelievable.
“And we gave those boys a good send-off at the end. They came to us and they saluted us and we saluted them.
“It’s not a matter of life or death, it’s a game of football.”
BBC Breakfast airs daily from 6am on BBC One and iPlayer.
Erling Haaland and SoFi Stadium, ladies and gentlemen. Your breakout stars of the World Cup.
We’ve all fallen for the blond forward who has rowed Norway to its first World Cup quarterfinal berth — and also for SoFi Stadium.
Or “Los Angeles Stadium,” FIFA’s designation for the $5.5-billion architectural masterpiece that welcomed the world to Inglewood.
I cover Rams and Chargers games there regularly, but the World Cup changed how I feel about the place. It has more soul now, more character.
There is more history attached, “core memories,” as Kevin Demoff, president of parent company Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, put it.
The exultation when the United States went up 1-0 in the seventh minute of its tournament-opening, 4-1 victory over Paraguay? “That’s now a core memory of this stadium,” Demoff said.
So is the proud Iranian diaspora showing up en masse to mostly support Team Melli twice, in draws with New Zealand and Belgium.
And the goal by LAFC’s Stephen Eustáquio in the second minute of second-half stoppage time to lead Canada to a 1-0 victory over South Africa in its first knockout game.
And Spain’s taut, 2-1 victory over Belgium in Friday’s high-stakes quarterfinals match.
FIFA might say these sensational scenes put L.A. — our tiny hamlet of more than 18 million people — “on the map.”
What they did was put SoFi Stadium on everyone’s radar as one of the world’s foremost football stadiums.
Jose Ovalle, a 34-year-old from Reynosa, Mexico, has watched matches at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City and Estadio BBVA in Monterey, both sites of World Cup action this summer.
“They’re amazing stadiums — a lot of history, so much history,” Ovalle said Friday. “But [SoFi Stadium] is one of the top stadiums in the world.”
Spain midfielder Fabián Ruiz, left, celebrates after scoring past Belgium goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, right, in the World Cup quarterfinals at SoFi Stadium on Friday.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Nah, said New Zealand coach Darren Bazeley: “This is the best football stadium I’ve ever been in.”
Swiss center back Manuel Akanji plays for Inter Milan and roots for the Atlanta Falcons. It was a big deal for him to play at their home field, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, in last year’s FIFA Club World Cup.
“It’s really nice, but this is the best,” Akanji said after Switzerland defeated Bosnia-Herzegovina in group play at Sofi Stadium. “This is the best I’ve seen overall among all the stadiums I’ve ever been to. It’s amazing.”
Eight matches, five group stage games, two round-of-32 knockout affairs, Friday’s quarterfinal and a partridge in a pear tree — it was a monthlong run that was everything SoFi Stadium’s team could have wished for when it began preparing to host eight years ago. And more.
“I don’t think you can envision the passion of national team fans,” Demoff said. “We’ve seen so many great events here, NFL games, concerts, but the pride of a national event and seeing people come to Los Angeles and the U.S. for the first time, and seeing this building for the first time…
“There’s something magical about 30,000 Bosnians in blue singing, marching from the airport to here. You can’t properly envision that, no matter how many times you’ve been here.”
People raved about sight lines and sound. They admired the architecture and the infinity screen and the way the canopy kept things cool. In line to buy merchandise Friday, Orange County’s Nick Valencia looked around and mused: “Wow, humans made this.”
Players had the run of the place on real grass, not the artificial turf in place for NFL games. (Don’t expect that to change, Demoff said, noting that upkeep would be doubly challenging at SoFi Stadium with two NFL teams using the field.)
Soccer fans amplified their positive reviews online, where the only complaint having to do with SoFi Stadium was that FIFA decided to give the World Cup final to the archaic-by-comparison MetLife Stadium — a.k.a. “New York/New Jersey Stadium” — instead.
The stadium popped in person and on TV, its distinctive, futuristic shape making it immediately recognizable in a way that not every stadium is.
Vibes were good among volunteers and visitors from around the world and every corner of the United States — and among stadium staffers, who won raises in a late-breaking contract agreement that resulted in increases to more than $30 per hour.
The Rams’ house — and Chargers’ — was full almost every match, with four sold-out crowds of 70,492 and an eight-game total of 561,656.
People paid thousands of dollars for tickets and got their money’s worth at the world’s most-expensive stadium, a modern marvel that’s only getting better with age.
Dodger Stadium is dripping in lore, from Kirk Gibson’s legendary walk-off home run in 1988 to more history, like Shohei Ohtani playing perhaps the greatest game ever last postseason.
Staples — er, Crypto.com Arena — is where Kobe Bryant dropped 81. Decathlete Rafer Johnson lit the Olympic flame in 1984 at the Los Angeles Coliseum. And we all can picture Brandi Chastain ripping off her top in her iconic celebration after scoring the game-winning penalty kick in the 1999 Women’s World Cup at the Rose Bowl.
“We may not have the Brandi Chastain moment from ‘99,” Demoff said. “But we’ve had so many great moments off this tournament that I think will be replayed over and over and over again.”
There are more moments to come, with SoFi Stadium slated to host Super Bowl LXI in February and then, in 2028, to stage the Olympic Opening Ceremony and the Olympic swimming competition.
“Where the U.S. scored the opening goal,” Demoff said, “is going to be the middle of the Olympic swimming pool. I think that contrast blows people’s minds. It certainly blows mine.”
And for the past month, Los Angeles’ stadium blew the world’s mind.
Argentina’s Ministry of National Security is coordinating a joint operation with U.S. and British agencies to strengthen security inside and outside Atlanta Stadium, where the match between England and Argentina was to be be played Wednesday Photo by Ronald Wiotek/EPA
July 15 (UPI) — Argentina has strengthened cooperation with U.S. authorities to implement its stadium access control system for the World Cup semifinal match Wednesday against England in Atlanta.
The system allows officials to identify people banned from attending soccer matches, including members of violent fan groups and thousands of child support debtors.
The Ministry of National Security is coordinating a joint operation with U.S. and British agencies to strengthen security inside and outside Atlanta Stadium, where the match was to be played.
The operation includes meetings with the FBI and Georgia State Police, as well as an increased presence of law enforcement officers and private security personnel at stadium entrances, the ministry said.
National Security Secretary Alejandra Monteoliva said in a video posted on X that Argentina’s National Registry of Individuals Banned from Stadiums has already been made available to U.S. authorities to assist with the operation.
ARGENTINA – INGLATERRA CON REGLAS
Los violentos no nos representan; ni aquí, ni allá, ni en ningún lado.
“Soccer belongs to families and true fans, and we do not want violent people representing us anywhere in the world,” she said.
The Argentine government previously provided U.S. authorities with a database that contains the names of some 35,000 people subject to stadium bans. The information-sharing system allows U.S. authorities to identify those prohibited from entering soccer stadiums in Argentina, although the final decision on entry into the United States stadiums to matches rests exclusively with U.S. authorities.
The operation also incorporates the “Alerta Halcón” system, which works alongside the National Directorate of Migration and detects when a person subject to a stadium ban leaves Argentina. That information is transmitted in real time to Argentine officials in the United States, who share it with local authorities for case-by-case evaluation.
The mechanism is part of the Tribuna Segura program, created by the Argentine government in 2016 to prevent people considered a security risk because of previous violence at sporting events from entering stadiums.
The registry primarily includes members of barras bravas, the term used in Argentina for organized soccer supporter groups historically associated with violence inside and outside stadiums.
The system operates through a national database that is checked whenever a spectator presents an identity document to enter a stadium. If the individual is listed as subject to an active restriction, entry is automatically denied.
In May, the national government expanded the scope of Tribuna Segura by incorporating information from child support debtor registries in Buenos Aires and 13 provinces as part of an agreement to extend restrictions already in force in different jurisdictions, the Buenos Aires Herald reported.
Also, about 13,000 of the roughly 35,000 people in the database are parents who failed to meet child support obligations.
Authorities said, however, that not every late payment results in a stadium ban. To be added to the registry, a person must go through judicial proceedings for failing to comply with child support obligations and become subject to measures ordered by a judge, which may include a ban on attending sporting events.
The Argentine government said the inclusion of child support debtors is intended to encourage compliance with obligations toward children by restricting access to recreational activities.
According to the latest report by UNICEF Argentina, 56% of mothers whose children do not live with their father receive no child support, and that figure rises to 68% when those who receive irregular payments are included.
“Failure to pay child support constitutes a violation of children’s rights, with tangible effects on their living conditions,” Carolina Aulicino, social policy officer at UNICEF Argentina, said while presenting the report.
Experts cited by the Buenos Aires Herald said the measure has strong symbolic value because it seeks to encourage debtors to regularize their situation, although they argued it should be accompanied by reforms to speed up access to the courts and facilitate the effective collection of child support payments.
Pieces from the turf used at the stadium will go on sale as memorabilia and will be priced from $450 to $1,200.
By Reuters and The Associated Press
Published On 11 Jul 202611 Jul 2026
FIFA is hoping to make money off the World Cup final even after the match is finished and the tournament is wrapped up.
Segments of the pitch for the World Cup final will be up for sale starting at $450 per piece, football’s governing body announced on Saturday.
Players and coaches have criticised the quality of the field at New Jersey’s MetLife, which usually uses an artificial surface for NFL games of the New York Giants and Jets. FIFA renamed the venue to New Jersey New York Stadium for the World Cup.
FIFA, accused of charging high prices for this year’s tournament in the United States, will earn more than $11m from the sale, according to a report in The Athletic.
“Own a genuine piece of football history with an authentic 2026 FIFA World Cup Piece of the pitch, permanently preserved in a premium acrylic with a USB keepsake,” the website says. “Each piece contains an original fragment of the iconic Final playing surface, making it a unique collectable that celebrates one of the world’s greatest sporting events.”
The official store says each segment of turf is 17.5 by 17.5 by 17.5, although it doesn’t specify whether that figure is inches, centimetres or millimetres.
FIFA said “the acrylic USB features an authenticity film, while offering a sleek, contemporary display piece. Presented in a premium hinged shoulder box with striking spot UV detailing, this exclusive item is designed for collectors, fans, and football enthusiasts alike”.
FIFA is making the turf available to send only to addresses in the United States and Europe.
“Orders will not be shipped until after the FIFA World Cup 2026 Final,” the governing body said.
In addition to the high-priced tickets and memorabilia for the tournament, it will cost $3,000 for the highest-priced tier of souvenir turf. The three-by-three-inch (7.6-by-7.6-centimetre) piece of grass comes with a gold-etched replica ticket, a miniature replica World Cup ball and a crystal-cut World Cup trophy.
The three other tiers of souvenir turf will sell for $450, $900 and $1,200.
There will be no more than 2,026 pieces available in any one tier.
FIFA is selling regular tickets for the final at up to $32,970 for the final and is asking $34,500 and $32,500 for hospitality tickets that include food and drinks.
The report indicated that the turf which will be used for the World Cup final was grown at a turf farm in North Carolina.
For consistency, new turf fields were installed at all World Cup venues, including those that typically have artificial surfaces like the stadiums in Seattle, Washington; Atlanta, Georgia; East Rutherford, New Jersey; Vancouver, Canada; Arlington, Texas; and Inglewood, California.
There is no indication of what will happen to the turf fields that are not being used for the final.
Everyone knew going in that Lionel Messi would be the narrative centerpiece of the 2026 World Cup. Easily the most recognized name in the competition, Messi is considered by many to be the greatest soccer player of all time and, as the captain of 2022 winner Argentina, he is the reigning World Cup champ. At 18, he scored his first World Cup goal in 2006 and has competed in every World Cup since. He celebrated his 39th birthday before this year’s knockout rounds began, so it’s not unreasonable to assume that this will be his last.
No matter what Messi did, or failed to do, it would be News. Everyone with even a passing interest in the event knew this. Including me.
But I didn’t expect to completely fall for the guy. He’s a professional male athlete, for heaven’s sake, and I don’t emotionally invest in professional male athletes. Admire some of them, sure; watch with bated breath and then scream in astonishment when they pull off some amazing feat or another, absolutely. But the only athletes that have ever touched my heart have been women — Nadia Comăneci; Billie Jean King and the Title IX-sparking stars of women’s tennis; Dorothy Hamill; Brandi Chastain and 1999 Women’s World Cup winners; Venus and Serena Williams; Simone Biles; Caitlin Clark.
But here I am, at age 62, truly, madly, deeply in love with Lionel Messi.
I know, I know, me and half the world. Which normally would serve as an effective prophylactic. I am habitually wary of super-intense fandoms and the men who inspire them; stadiums filled with people chanting a single name inevitably set off internal alarm bells. As I have asked several times in columns throughout the years, how many “heroes” must we watch falter under pressure or be exposed for decidedly unheroic acts before we wise up and get out of the pedestal-placement business?
Yet here I am, stalking him on Instagram, up all hours flicking through interviews and career highlight clips. (I even watched the Apple TV docuseries “Messi Meets America”!) Here I am, literally praying to God, who clearly has more important things to do, for Argentina to advance and screaming Messi’s name every time he scores, assists or pretty much does anything at all.
In a matter of weeks, I have become addicted not just to watching the man play but seeing how he reacts when a shot is made or a game won.
Every World Cup player is happy when they or their team scores, but Messi is delighted. Like a kid seeing a puppy under the tree on Christmas morning. Like he cannot believe this wonderful thing that has just happened even if he was the one who sweat and ran and defied physics to make it happen.
His smile is infectious and even when he is running toward the stands, arms spread wide, after making some impossible shot or other, it never seems self-congratulatory. He is simply filled with joy and wants to spread it around. The field, the stadium, the world.
And his hugs. Long, deep, radiating emotion, utterly unself-conscious. Everyone needs to find someone who hugs them like Messi hugs people — teammates, coaches, opposing players, young fans. I could watch videos of him hugging his mentor and former teammate Ronaldinho or Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni all day long. (I’m not saying I have, nor am I saying I haven’t.)
Sometimes the hype gets a bit nauseating — former teammates who claim he never makes a mistake, commentators who refer to him as superhuman (despite the fact that he has missed as many penalty kicks as he has made in this World Cup). Whether Messi himself agrees that he is the GOAT is none of my business, but he doesn’t act like many sports stars who have received similar adulation. He doesn’t peacock, he doesn’t preen; he is visibly angry with himself when he doesn’t produce. He isn’t perfect — in various past games, he has gotten into heated disputes and shoving matches and famously (and many believe deservedly) taunted Netherlands coach Louis van Gaal during World Cup 2022. But for a man who has been such a star for so long, he presents himself as simply a player among players. The captain, certainly, but not the most important person on the field.
That is the most lovable, and superhuman, thing about him.
It feels pretty basic, not to mention embarrassing, to have a sudden summer crush on Messi, but I don’t care. He’s married to his childhood sweetheart, has three adorable sons and a picture of his mother tattooed on his back. He lets his teammates hoist him in the air and allows sports commentators to regularly (and lovingly) refer to him as “Little Messi.” He gets angry sometimes, but in this tournament he has yet to noticeably hector the refs or rumble with his opponents. He wants to win, obviously, but his joy comes from playing the game well rather than defeating another team.
That’s why, despite my newfound addiction to Messi delight, the moment I loved him best was when he didn’t celebrate at all. In the round of 32, Argentina (No. 2 in FIFA rankings) seemed guaranteed a win over Cape Verde (67). But even with Messi’s early goal, the game was a nail-biter, with Cape Verde scoring two brilliant goals while their goalie Vozinha made eight saves, including four shots (one of them a free kick) from Messi. After Argentina won in additional playing time, there was none of the usual jubilation. Instead, a subdued Messi walked to the midfield to shake hands with his opponents, a sign of exhaustion, no doubt, but also of respect. He hugged Vozinha and told him that his country should be proud of him.
The exuberance was back Tuesday, however, when, after trailing Egypt for most of the round of 16 game, Argentina managed to pull off the comeback of the tournament, going from a 0-2 deficit to a 3-2 win after the 79th minute, with Messi scoring the tying goal.
This time, the smiles, the hugs, the radiant joy filling Atlanta Stadium could have powered the entire state of Georgia. This time, Messi was so happy, he wept.
So did I. The World Cup is over in less than two weeks, and France and Spain are currently the 1-2 favorites to win the thing. My love for Messi is, after all, just a summer romance.
And as with any summer romance, I want it to last forever.
A sports stadium in La Guaira state has been turned into a makeshift home and logistics centre for thousands of victims of the Venezuela earthquakes. As Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi reports aid organizations are planning to make this a model for other shelters.
The Azteca Stadium has issued a shelter-in-place order because of severe weather before the last-16 World Cup tie between Mexico and England.
The match in Mexico City is set to kick off at 18:00 local time on Sunday (01:00 BST Monday).
There has been heavy rain in the city during the day and reports of lightning above the stadium.
The current advice for supporters and media inside the ground is to remain in their seats.
Fifa held talks with the English and Mexican football associations on Friday after proposing the match be moved to 19:00 BST on Sunday (12:00 local time) before a U-turn resulted in the kick-off time remaining unchanged.
The power of the people is what makes the Azteca truly special.
Whether cheering on Mexico, home club sides Club America or Cruz Azul, or hosting neutral sides in the World Cup, the Azteca crowd is renowned for generating a ferocious soundtrack like nowhere else.
“It is next to impossible to communicate on the pitch because the Azteca is full of sound swirling all around you”, says Jason de Vos, one of the few men to have both played and coached against Mexico at the stadium, doing so with the Canadian national team.
“The Mexicans know they have an advantage because of the crowd and they try to swarm you on the pitch too.
“When you arrive the team bus drives under the stadium, down a ramp and then you walk to the dressing room.
“When you walk to the pitch you have to go through a very tight tunnel and you can hear a buzzing sound, like a swarm of bees.
“To get outside, you approach the pitch from below, going up a staircase, and when you crest the top and see the light, you realise that the buzzing is the people.
“It’s the vibration of the horns, the screaming, the jumping. It’s crazy
“But that’s exactly why you want to play football.”
A post-game fireworks show went awry at BMO Stadium on Friday night, when fireworks set off on the playing pitch sent flares streaming into the stands, forcing fans to scatter to safety.
Angel City FC played the Orlando Pride at BMO Stadium, coming back from a month-long break to win the match 2-0. But it was the promised post-game fireworks celebration that made the biggest splash.
Videos of the pyrotechnics display show the pitch filling with tall showers of sparks and dense smoke as dozens of fireworks launched upward. At what was to be the climactic finale of the show, however, fireworks began to take off horizontally, headed into the half-filled stands.
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From her club seat with her friends, season ticket-holder Jade Greenhut captured the center circle spectacle. She said she took out her phone and started recording after the first errant missile from the fusillade sped directly toward the Angel City team bench.
“Oh my god!” a woman’s voice on Greenhut’s video screams as at least two fireworks launched into the stands nearby, sending fans scrambling to get clear. Two more fireworks bounded across the field and into the stands. Off-camera, a man says, “Everybody’s running!”
A spokesperson for the soccer club said the organization had no information “of any serious injury” from the wayward pyrotechnics.
“A third party vendor was hired to facilitate the pyrotechnics,” said Stephanie Rudnick, head of communications for the Angel City Football Club, from her home in Australia.
“A fireworks malfunction did occur during last night’s post-match celebration at Angel City FC’s game vs. Orlando at BMO Stadium,” the team said in a statement to The Times. “Our medical and safety teams were on site and ready to respond. Stadium operations confirmed the venue was secure and guests, staff, players, and crew were able to depart safely.
“We are working closely with our pyrotechnics vendor to review the incident and evaluating appropriate next steps.”
Greenhut was nonplussed about the post-match mayhem. She said many fans had already left in the 20-minute interlude between the end of the game and the fireworks show, leaving the stands relatively empty and reducing the likelihood of injuries.
The air was already clearing by the time the stadium was evacuated. Her ticket ambassador approached her afterward to apologize. “He was like, ‘We did this for the [Los Angeles Football Club], and everything was fine,’” she said. “I don’t blame them at all.
“Honestly, the game was great. We played phenomenal,” Greenhut said.
But perhaps next time, she said, Angel City could go with drones.
Remember when we were sure the World Cup would suffer from all the issues that had everyone seeing red before the first ball was kicked?
And remember when we were certain soccer could never catch on in this country?
Despite controversies over visas and ticket prices and transportation, and in spite of consternation over expansion and new rules, the game has, as usual, proved too good to fail.
And we, the American people, have become unusually engrossed in it.
We’ve been tuning in on TV in record numbers and, even at exorbitant prices, helping to sell out our 70,000-some-capacity stadiums. Before group play was even finished, this tournament — staged also in Mexico and Canada — already outdrew the 1994 World Cup, which was hosted by the United States and set an attendance record of nearly 3.6 million.
We’ve been loving the healthy cultural exchange, and we’re being reminded that cultural barriers of traditional sports fandom can be breached.
So now, to keep our interest from drying out like a pitch on a hot summer day, the goal should be to keep the market saturated with soccer. That will take Major League Soccer tearing down all the walls.
It’s already turned the page on its calendar, adopting a summer-to-spring season format that will better blend with the global game.
Now MLS needs to make its games easier to watch, and to do its part to make the sport easier to play.
Canada goalkeeper Maxime Crépeau, left, celebrates with teammate Jonathan David after a 1-0 win over South Africa at the World Cup on Sunday.
(Kelvin Kuo / Los Angeles Times)
While the proverbial iron is hot, it needs a strike like Stephen Eustáquio’s winning rocket in the 92nd minute of Canada’s 1-0 victory against South Africa on Sunday at SoFi Stadium.
Eleven players on the two teams were MLS representatives — including Eustáquio, who spent the last six months in LAFC’s midfield.
Goalkeeper Maxime Crépeau, who played two seasons with LAFC and now plays for Orlando City, stopped the only shot he saw for his second clean sheet this World Cup, which saw the Canadians succeed in their first knockout stage appearance.
There’s been no avoiding MLS players in this World Cup. The greatest of them is piling up goals for Argentina: Lionel Messi, the Inter Miami superstar, is now the all-time World Cup goal-scorer (with 19).
MLS has set an attendance record too, with 44 players participating. It ranks as the league with the second-most players apart from the top five European leagues. LAFC had three current players in the mix.
But wait. Record skip. Before you celebrate the MLS’s contributions to this soccer spectacle, check with the VAR. Yep, without the 13 MLS players representing nations that rank 40th or lower in FIFA’s world ranking, there actually would be fewer than the 37 MLS participants at the World Cup four years ago.
A baby’s first steps are for celebrating, but three decades after the league’s formation, MLS is still searching for a giant leap. It’s still having a mean time of trying to make “fetch” happen for real.
It would help to make its games more readily available — not to the already converted, but to fans who didn’t even know what they didn’t know about soccer until the World Cup began in their backyards.
MLS has already brought MLS from behind Apple’s season pass paywall. And the league and streaming service also reportedly have agreed to a revised media rights deal that will end at the end of the 2028-29 season, three and a half years earlier than expected.
But the hat trick would be to remove the need to subscribe to streaming service to watch MLS games altogether, and then get those matches onto the networks people know to tune into for their sports.
Normalize watching American soccer.
And stop gatekeeping. MLS’s developmental programs are too restrictive and exclusive — they’re not developing more soccer players, they’re curtailing who can play.
It’s in the league’s interests, and the sport’s in this country, to encourage as many players to play as much as they can — including for their high school teams, which MLS Next bars.
They’ve got people in the tent; the goal should be to make them want to stay.
To make them want to join the world’s circus, not to let it pack up and move on, out of sight and out of mind, until it swings back through years from now.
GUADALAJARA, Mexico — Spain, ranked second in the FIFA rankings and the favorite to win the World Cup, did not play its best game, but did enough late Friday to defeat Uruguay 1-0 and eliminate the South American team in one of the most anticipated matches of the first round.
Spain finished first in Group H, while first-time participant Cape Verde advanced in second place with just three points, the result of three draws. Uruguay was eliminated from the tournament with only two points, following two draws and one loss.
For much of the match on Friday, Spain lacked better offensive coordination ahead of facing more dangerous opponents in the upcoming do-or-die rounds.
Alex Baena scored a goal in the 42nd minute by connecting with the ball after a cross from the right. The ball slipped past goalkeeper Fernando Muslera, who at first seemed to have no trouble blocking the shot, but the ball found the back of the net, making all the difference on Friday night in Guadalajara in front of 45,065 fans — most of whom were rooting for Spain. Muslera did not return for the second half and was replaced by Sergio Rochet.
“We have to celebrate because, honestly, it’s hard to finish first in a group like this,” said Baena, a midfielder for Atlético Madrid.
“It was a physically demanding match — extremely intense — and we rose to the occasion,” said Spain coach Luis de la Fuente, who emphasized that winning the World Cup requires winning tough matches against tough teams like Uruguay.
“I’m proud of this team because they want to keep growing. I have complete faith in this team. We’re where we are, and that’s exactly where we wanted to be,” added De la Fuente, who noted that the team needed to improve its fluidity of play.
Uruguay failed to beat Saudi Arabia or Cape Verde — two teams that, on paper, seemed inferior at the start of the tournament. Coach Marcelo Bielsa’s team couldn’t find its rhythm or play at its best.
“I wasn’t able to bring out the full potential of Uruguay’s players,” Bielsa said, visibly shaken by his failure with the Uruguayan national team. “What I’m leaving behind for Uruguayan soccer is nothing, because any contribution a coach might make to the soccer of a country where he worked for three years never takes root if results aren’t achieved.”
At the end of the match, Uruguay’s Agustín Canobbio was sent off after committing a hard foul on Spanish defender Pau Cubarsí in the 95th minute, prompting several Uruguayan players to protest the decision by U.S. referee Ismail Elfath.
For Bielsa and Uruguay, this marks the end of an era in which many believe the Argentine coach lost control of the locker room and his relationship with the media became strained because of his eccentric and explosive personality, but, above all, a lack of wins.
Cape Verde will face Argentina in the round of 32 on Friday in Miami. Spain will face the second-place finisher in Group J, which will be determined late Saturday by the match between Algeria and Austria. The game will be played at SoFi Stadium.
The match was the fourth and final World Cup game played in Guadalajara. Before the game began, a minute of silence was observed in memory of the victims of the earthquakes in Venezuela. So far, Venezuelan authorities have reported that more than 900 people have died and that thousands are missing.
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — World Cup tickets are expensive. Flights to North America are expensive. Hotel rooms in many places are expensive.
Then there’s the price of beer.
There are some fun — and yes, sometimes pricey — food and drink offerings at the venues playing host to the World Cup. A $75 caviar-topped tray of tater tots and a $40 empanada weighing in at 5 pounds for the daring or for sharing in Miami. Ribeye tacos for $8 in Guadalajara, Mexico. Something called a Twinkie cheeseburger that has nothing to do with dessert for $22 in Los Angeles.
Prices, in many cases, aren’t all that different from what U.S. fans would experience on NFL Sundays or college football Saturdays. But some international fans aren’t used to such pricing and are calling foul, especially over beer prices that can top $20.
“It’s unfair. It’s not right. It’s wrong,” said Thomas Schüller, an engineer from Germany in Toronto to watch his national team play over the weekend, as he held a beer that cost him 24.25 Canadian dollars (about $17). “It’s three times the cost of what I pay in my country.”
But is that stopping him?
“Well, no,” Schüller acknowledged.
Beer prices become a mild pint of discord
There is clearly some sticker shock among international visitors to this World Cup, especially when it comes to the concession prices. In Europe, it’s not uncommon for beers to be perhaps around 4 or 5 euros (about $5-6).
There’s also no shortage of intrigue on the menu at the concession stands at stadiums across the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
“Never seen anything like it,” said Janine Arbetter, a fan from Austria, as she waited for a hot dog, chips and soda combo in Miami last week. The pre-tip price: $19.35, which included a discount for using Visa. “It’s a lot of food for a little snack.”
Some Argentina fans happily showed off their $34 lobster rolls from a match in Kansas City on social media, but in Toronto, the brisket sandwich with chips and a bottle of soda for nearly 40 Canadian dollars ($28) had some online commenters lamenting it as “robbery.”
“It’s OK, more or less, for the World Cup,” German fan Daniel Feldmann said of the food prices while watching a match in Vancouver last week.
Concession offerings vary from stadium to stadium
FIFA, the sport’s governing body and the tournament organizer, has very specific rules on just about everything related to the World Cup — and there are guidelines that concessionaires have to follow as well. But prices can vary by market, as do the food and drink offerings. And that means the experience in one city might look, or taste, nothing like what’s offered in another.
The “Fancy AF Tots” for $75 at Miami Stadium aren’t really tots at all — it’s three deep-fried hash brown patties, with caviar, creme fraiche and chives. (For those who just want the caviar, it’ll be $70.) Southern California’s Twinkie cheeseburger is in fact a burger topped with a Texas Twinkie — a bacon-wrapped jalapeño stuffed with brisket and cream cheese.
But there’s also a slew of choices specific to a local market; for example, Vancouver offers short rib poutine along with a maple bacon smokie (smoked sausage topped with bacon onion jam that features Canadian maple syrup).
And in Miami, the signature offerings include pan con lechon (a Cuban-style sandwich with pork, infused with citrus mojo sauce and served on a toasted full Cuban loaf) and Empanada Mundial (the five-pound, handmade, chicken-and-cheese-stuffed dish named after the World Cup).
Both Vancouver and Miami have Sodexo Live as a food and beverage provider, and the typical game-day menus in both stadiums were revised a bit to accommodate a soccer crowd.
“We want it to feel like Miami when you’re here,” said Zach Williams, Sodexo Live’s vice president of operations at Miami Stadium. “Everything we do around the Miami Stadium, we want to make sure everybody understands that when they come here, they’re getting a Miami experience.”
Atlanta Stadium keeps prices low
In Mexico City, a beer could cost a day’s pay — literally. The daily minimum wage in Mexico City is just 315.04 pesos (roughly $18). Some beers at Mexico City Stadium were selling for between 299 and 310 pesos — about twice as much as fans would ordinarily pay in the same stadium when the World Cup isn’t in town.
But in Atlanta, where Falcons owner and stadium operator Arthur Blank promised the low concession prices he’s championed for many years would hold for the World Cup, pizza slices were $3, 32-ounce sodas were $4, a cheeseburger was $5, chicken tenders with fries were $6 and beers could be had for as little as $8.
Jonathan Arango, a 33-year-old from Greenville, S.C., was at a match in Atlanta with his wife, daughter and father.
“In total for what we got — three orders of tacos, a slice of pizza, two waters and a Coke — we spent like $50,” Arango said. “Compared to what we’ve paid at other events … it’s nice after you paid a lot for a ticket.”
And Schüller pointed out that even though the tournament does come around every four years, it still feels like a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
“The entire football world is having fun,” Schüller said, “so cheers to that.”
Civic pride, sure. But what is it really worth to the city of Anaheim to have its name on the hometown baseball team?
Hundreds of millions of dollars, the city has said. As the Angels’ stadium lease approaches its end, and as Anaheim prepares for negotiations either with Arte Moreno or a potential new owner, it’s worth keeping in mind.
So too is a concept floating around City Hall in Anaheim: What if we could put a new stadium and a youth sports complex next to one another?
It’s leverage: If the Angels’ owner wants to build atop the stadium parking lots, the city can pursue an exemption to a state law that currently restricts what can be built there, which could mean more money for the team and its development partners. In exchange for the exemption, the team name would revert to the Anaheim Angels.
If that’s the carrot, this is the stick: The city would have to approve the zoning changes that could make the land “two to three times more valuable than it is as a parking lot,” Anaheim Mayor Ashleigh Aitken said.
Said Aitken: “There are no gifts. For an ownership to truly be a partner to the city in what that property could be, there is going to have to be some realization that Anaheim is not Los Angeles.”
The Angels’ stadium lease expires in 2032, and the team can extend it through 2038. A new owner could move the Angels — or at least leverage the threat of a move — but Anaheim offers a 150-acre site with what every owner in pro sports covets: land around the venue to turn the property into a year-round money-making operation.
The standard ballpark villages include restaurants, shops, hotels, homes, offices and entertainment venues. The Ducks are launching one, called OC Vibe, around Honda Center, and within walking distance of Angel Stadium.
Katie Wright, who books sports events for Anaheim’s tourism bureau, said there would be a market if her city built a sports park.
“The demand for, specifically, soccer, baseball and softball is tremendous,” Wright told the Anaheim City Council in April. “They would be filled every single weekend, I think.”
What Anaheim has that Ontario and Irvine do not: Disneyland down the street for visiting families, a variety of restaurants within walking distance, and hotel rooms aplenty. In Anaheim, 40% of the city’s general fund comes from taxes on hotel rooms.
“With Angels baseball right next to a youth sports facility, to have the synergy of hotels and restaurants, and players interacting with the Little League kids and soccer fields,” Aitken said, “I just think it’s a unique opportunity.”
Everything old is new again: In 1996, Anaheim pitched a youth sports center called the “Little A” in part of the stadium parking lots as part of a ballpark village that never materialized.
What might be in the best interest of the city now might not be in that of the developer, whether that turns out to be the Angels or a real estate partner. While a sports park might drive tax revenues to the city, a developer might pay the most for land used for hotel and retail properties, said Louis Tomaselli, the Irvine-based executive managing director at JLL, a nationally prominent commercial real estate brokerage.
“A youth sports complex would likely be at or near the bottom from a land value perspective,” Tomaselli said.
That’s all part of the negotiation, and for now the city of Anaheim has no party with which to negotiate. That leaves room for all sorts of brainstorming, including Aitken’s curiosity about flanking the development with high-rise residential buildings, similar to the condominiums that have risen next to Petco Park in San Diego. In some of them, you can watch the game from your balcony.
But let’s get back to the value of the Anaheim name on the baseball team.
“A lot of times, we get the question, ‘Exactly where is Anaheim?’” Wright, the Anaheim tourism official, told the City Council. “We’re always fighting to say, ‘We’re not L.A.’”
In 2005, when Anaheim sued the Angels after Moreno slapped the Los Angeles label on the team, the city commissioned experts that testified the name change would cost Anaheim nearly $200 million over the following decade and close to $400 million through 2029. The Angels dismissed both numbers as wildly high, but that is what the city presented in court.
I asked Sean Moran of Los Angeles-based Innovative Partnerships Group for an update. Moran estimated the worth of the Anaheim name at $26.5 million per year — or more than $500 million over the life of a 20-year deal — based on the value of references to the city on game broadcasts, digital and social media, highlight clips, betting sites, in fantasy leagues, and more.
“I don’t think you can put a monetary value on civic pride and respecting your fan base,” Aitken said. “So, if a new owner wants to come in and start fresh and really respect the fan base in Orange County, the name should not even be a negotiating point.
“It should be the first thing you do, out of respect for where this team is located, and the fan base that is so loyal in good times and bad.”
Perhaps. But, if I’m the new owner of the Angels and the city is on record saying its name on the team is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, the first thing I say to the city in negotiations is: You can get your name on the team for that $500 million, which would help me build a new ballpark that could cost $1.5 billion.
Who else could benefit from that? Moreno, as the need for a new owner to pay for a ballpark could lower the sale price.
Even without that exemption from state law, a new owner could pursue a fair amount of development on land Anaheim has failed to develop for 60 years, on a site the city’s own land use plan envisions as “an exciting mix of high energy uses while providing additional housing.” Or a new owner could simply inherit the existing lease and deal with potential development later.
You can start to get the shape of what the bargaining might look like. Avelino Valencia (D-Anaheim), the assembly member who introduced the bill in Sacramento intended to spur the return of the Anaheim Angels name, included a provision that says resolution would take precedence over legislation.
“If there is another outcome that takes place, in negotiations or deal-wise, there would be no need for this, right?” Valencia said.
All of that could be years down the road, so no sense arguing all the finer points now. Aitken promises a series of community meetings first, so that Anaheim residents can share how they envision the future of the Angel Stadium property, with or without a baseball stadium.
This should come up for discussion too: The Anaheim Angels name might be ideal for the city, but what, if anything, should the city give up to get it? The last time the city asked, Moreno just said no. If a new owner would be willing, should the taxpayers of Anaheim consider subsidizing the name?
Not much good comes to mind when you think about the effects of climate change.
Wildfires, floods, melting ice caps, heat waves, the bleaching of ocean reefs.
But then there’s baseball, and one possible silver lining.
Has global warming turned Dodger Stadium into a home run launching pad?
I was watching Monday night’s ESPN telecast of the L.A. game against Tampa Bay when the play-by-play announcer said that once upon a time, it was an article of faith that fly balls didn’t carry far in the heavy night air of Chavez Ravine.
However, the announcer continued, a Dodger executive had told him that over the last several years, “in general, the marine layer is gone, and the ball has started to carry at night, and you can see it now in the numbers. It is a great home run hitters park.”
This is statistically true. Between 2020 and 2025, Dodger Stadium had more home runs than any other major league park, although this year’s total is lagging behind last year’s pace. In all of Major League Baseball, home run totals have fluctuated but gradually increased over the years, with this year’s pace running slightly ahead of last year’s.
That can’t all be attributed to climate change, as retired Dodger great Steve Garvey is going to explain in a minute. When considered city by city and decade by decade, there are lots of factors in home run totals, from ballpark dimensions to playing strategies to the number of long ball hitters in each lineup.
And now we have to ask ourselves: Is global warming producing more home runs than steroids did?
The warm-up is real, but it isn’t new. In Game 2 of the 2017 World Series, the temperature at Dodger Stadium topped 100 when the first pitch was thrown, and the ballpark was like a popcorn machine. The Dodgers and Astros combined for a record eight home runs, and The Times’ story quoted a NASA climate scientist who noted that the marine layer was a no-show.
While watching Monday night’s game, I emailed Dodger fan Edgar McGregor, the meteorologist who warned neighbors about the catastrophic weather conditions that resulted in the Eaton fire. I asked what he thought about this theory of a link between a diminished marine layer and the number of home runs.
“There is absolute truth to that,” said McGregor, explaining that “when oceanic temperatures are warmer, the marine layer is weaker.”
McGregor broke down the aerodynamics: “Cold air is dense, so a baseball has to push more atoms out of the way as it travels deep. Warm air has lower density, so balls travel farther.”
UC climate scientist Daniel Swain said this pattern will accelerate “for the rest of our lives as air continues to warm and baseballs continue to meet less and less resistance.”
This doesn’t mean that an infield pop-up will become a home run, but Swain said balls travel four inches farther per 1 degree Fahrenheit increase, “meaning that the average hit goes about 1-2 feet further than it would have in the early 20th century.”
That doesn’t sound like a staggering difference, but with thousands of batted balls over the years, that’s a lot of outs turning into doubles, triples and home runs. Swain sent me a 2023 study from the American Meteorological Society journal titled “Global warming, home runs, and the future of America’s pastime.”
Researchers reviewed data between 2010 and 2019, finding that “higher temperatures substantially increase home runs,” with about 50 per year “attributable to historical warming.” That adds up to about 500 more home runs.
The scientists concluded: “Each degree of global warming is associated with an additional 95 home runs per baseball season.”
Home runs bring fans to their feet, as in Monday night’s game, when Kyle Tucker pumped one that made it just over the right field wall and Miguel Rojas popped the game-winner with a shot that barely cleared the left field fence. So I don’t want to sound like a party pooper, but there is no bigger story in the world than the accelerating destruction of the only sandlot we’ve got.
If the right team hits a homer, feel free to go ahead and cheer. But if the wrong team hits one, you can remind friends and loved ones that each homer is like a fossil fuel bugle call signaling the end of the world as we know it.
Thankfully, the marine layer has not yet disappeared entirely. We still got some May gray this year and some June gloom as well. I wondered, though, if there were any retired Dodgers out there who might be thinking they’d have walloped more home runs if they’d had the advantage of warmer air.
“I do remember some balls just not traveling far, especially compared to day games,” said James Loney, who played first base for the Dodgers from 2006 to 2012 and had 106 career homers with three teams.
Today’s Dodgers hit a lot of home runs primarily because the lineup is stacked, Loney said. But he said he recalled players from visiting teams hammering a long ball and passing him at first base, thinking “they had a home run, and then making a right turn back to the dugout.”
Garvey, also a first baseman, slugged 272 home runs in his 18-year career and told me that if he were playing in this era, “I probably would have hit another 40 or 50 home runs.”
But Garvey, who started with the Dodgers in 1969, said weather is just one of many factors that have led to more home runs in today’s game, which has abandoned finesse in favor of brute force.
Garvey said the bats are harder, the balls are livelier, the pitchers throw harder (more velocity means more pop for batters) and launch angles are talked about more in baseball than at Cape Canaveral.
“We never heard the term ‘launch angle,’” said Garvey, who told me he went up to the plate trying to hit a line drive, not a moon shot.
“My goal used to be a .300 average, 200 hits, 100 RBIs and 20-plus home runs,” said Garvey, who hit 20 or more homers six times, with a high of 33 in 1977.
Today’s Dodgers have plenty of swat in their lineup, ranking behind only the Yankees in home runs so far as they chase a third straight World Series ring. They’re in first place even though one of their biggest bombers, Shohei Ohtani, is about a dozen homers shy of last year’s pace.
But Swain has good news for Ohtani, for Dodger fans and for manufacturers of short-sleeved shirts.
“This year, there is going to be exceptionally high humidity for most of baseball season in SoCal due to the developing very strong El Niño event and record warm coastal ocean temperatures,” he said.
“So, it’s indeed plausible,” Swain continued, “that the combination of long-term warming from climate change, plus shorter-term warming and humidity increase from El Niño and near-shore ocean warming, might increase the number of home runs this season.”
One can only hope the home team does the most celebrating.
The 2026 World Cup, the largest ever, will be played in three countries and 16 stadiums, organized by geography, not national borders.
Seven of the 11 U.S. venues — all but Kansas City, Philadelphia, Santa Clara and Miami — plus Vancouver normally have artificial-turf fields.
So for the World Cup, which FIFA mandates must be played on grass, those surfaces underwent multi-million-dollar transformations, with state-of-the-art fields — each with its own root system and irrigation methods — rolled out across the plastic turf.
Additionally, stadiums that have corporate names not affiliated with FIFA sponsors — SoFi Stadium, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, etc. — will use generic names such as Los Angeles Stadium and Atlanta Stadium during the tournament.
In many ways, the most ambitious World Cup in history — which kicked off Thursday in Mexico City — has inspired more angst than anticipation, more fear than fervor.
The competition, returning to North America for the first time in more than three decades, has expanded to 48 teams and 104 matches, to be played over 39 days in 16 cities in the U.S., Mexico and Canada. The complex planning was eight years in the making.
Yet even before the competition opened with Mexico facing South Africa at the iconic Estadio Azteca, it has been marred by a number of controversies that threaten to overshadow the soccer and cloud the tournament’s legacy.
“I view this World Cup as the most politically combustible World Cup in recent history. And that’s saying something,” said Jules Boykoff, a political science professor at the University of Portland and author of eight books on the politics of international sport.
“We’re in uncharted territory in many ways.”
Relations between the host countries, once strong, have been strained by the Trump administration’s tariff policies and disagreements over border security. Travel bans have barred potential World Cup visitors — and even support staff and match officials — from entering the U.S. and others are fearful of making the trip, worried about ICE raids and immigration roundups.
The U.S. is at war with a tournament qualifier, Iran. And Iran has fired missiles and drones on Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, nations that also are World Cup participants.
The International Sports Press Assn. said Iranian and African journalists have been denied visas to cover games in the U.S., and Iran protested after more than a dozen members of its support staff had their requests to enter the U.S. rejected. The Iranians, who were forced to move their training base from Tucson to Tijuana, will spend limited time in the U.S. during group-play games that will take place in Inglewood and Seattle.
Players and journalists from Senegal, Uzbekistan and Iraq have been detained at U.S. airports for up to seven hours by immigration officials. Then on Monday, Omar Artan, a decorated referee and the first Somali official selected to work a World Cup, was turned away at Miami International Airport.
In addition, ticket prices have been so high and the lottery process for obtaining them so opaque, the attorneys general of New York and New Jersey have begun formal investigations into FIFA practices. Other states, including California, hosting tournament matches have begun asking questions as well.
All that has conspired to produce a World Cup that is struggling to catch on with the public. According to a recent poll by Yougov.com, a majority of Americans — 54% — say they are not at all interested in the tournament and nearly six in 10 say they will not watch any matches.
“People are just in a bad mood,” Boykoff said. “It’s a tough time.”
FIFA president Gianni Infantino remains optimistic, promising this will be “the biggest, the most inclusive, the greatest FIFA World Cup ever.” He made the same claim about the 2022 World Cup in Qatar and the 2018 tournament in Russia.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino speaks during a news conference on Wednesday before the start of the World Cup.
(Carl Recine / Getty Images)
“The World Cup should be understood as both a global sporting celebration and a major commercial enterprise, with these two dimensions being mutually enforcing rather than contradictory,” said Steve Georgakis, a lecturer on sports studies at the University of Sydney and a frequent author on soccer.
This year’s tournament is projected to swell FIFA’s coffers by nearly $9 billion and the TV ratings, it says, will be massive.
“Its universal appeal combined with the participation of 48 nations ensures that it remains a genuinely global sporting event,” Georgakis said.
Boykoff has his doubts.
“In this particular political moment, with the Trump administration being erratic and impulsive and needing a win from this tournament and the fact there’s so many moving parts geopolitically, I don’t have confidence that it’s just going to end up being a soccer-focused next five weeks,” he said.
This is not the first World Cup to kick off under some kind of black cloud.
The 1974 tournament in West Germany was tarred by the geopolitical fallout of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Four years later Argentina’s military dictatorship used the World Cup to sportswash a “Dirty War” in which as many as 30,000 people were tortured, murdered and disappeared.
The 2010 and 2014 World Cups were troubled by cost overruns and delays in the construction of stadiums and other infrastructure and the threat of labor unrest while global outrage over human rights violations and discrimination against women and LGBTQ people hung over the last two tournaments.
Those issues never fully disappeared but were overshadowed by the brilliance of the soccer. Jonathan Wilson, a columnist with the Guardian and author of “The Power and the Glory: The History of the World Cup,” expects the same this summer.
“The other stuff will still be there in the background,” he said, “but fundamentally the football will, for the vast majority of people, take over. It’s just sort of a natural cycle.”
Argentina star Lionel Messi controls the ball during an international friendly against Iceland on Tuesday.
(Butch Dill / Associated Press)
And as with every World Cup, there undoubtedly will be unforgettable moments.
Argentina’s Lionel Messi and Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo, the top scorers in soccer history, will be playing in their sixth and final World Cups — Messi chasing a second straight title and Ronaldo pursuing the only prize that has eluded him.
Kylian Mbabbe will be trying to take France to a third consecutive final while young superstars like Erling Haaland of Norway and Lamine Yamal of Spain will be looking to put their mark on their first World Cups.
Four teams — Jordan, Curacao, Cape Verde and Uzbekistan — have qualified for the tournament for the first time.
And there will be other storylines no one saw coming, all of which will contribute to the narrative of this World Cup.
“Major sporting events have a way of capturing public attention and shifting the conversation toward what is happening on the field rather than off it,” Georgakis said.
How much the actions of the Trump administration affect that calculation remains to be seen.
There are travel restrictions in place that fully or partially bar citizens from 39 countries — including a number of World Cup participants — from entering the U.S. And the administration has said ICE and Homeland Security personnel will have a visible presence at World Cup venues, including SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, where the American team will begin play Friday.
“There will be federal agents,” confirmed L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna, who added that he could not guarantee immigration sweeps would not take place. “ They told us that specifically would not be occurring,” he said. “Any of that’s subject to change.”
Mexico fans celebrate during a watch party at Plaza Mexico in Lynwood on Thursday.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
The difficulty in obtaining visas and the fear of being rounded up by immigration agents are being blamed, in part, for less-than-expected tourist traffic. Hotel operators in all 11 World Cup host cities say bookings for the tournament are well below projections. Several countries have issued warnings about travel to the U.S.
Then there are the own goals from FIFA over tickets and parking prices as high as $900 at some stadiums, weather issues and a short-lived ban on water bottles.
FIFA has defended its policies on ticket prices by arguing that premiums are necessary to maximize revenue, which it will invest in global soccer development. Variable, market-based pricing, it said, simply reflects standard entertainment practices in North America. The organization did, however, reverse its ban on fans bringing bottles into games. Spectators are now allowed to enter stadiums with one soft, plastic 20-ounce water bottle.
And despite a warning from climate scientists that one in four World Cup games could be played in dangerously hot conditions, FIFA will start 40 of them at 3 p.m. or earlier local time, the warmest time of day, to accommodate European TV viewers.
Georgakis said the play on the field will have to overcome all those issues if this World Cup is to earn a favorable place in history.
“Ultimately the success of the World Cup will be judged by what happens on the field,” he said. “If the football is compelling, dramatic and memorable, the tournament will likely be remembered as a great World Cup. If the play falls short, then the off-field issues such as ticket prices, extreme heat, ICE enforcement activities, the Trump administration will receive great attention and could shape perceptions of the event.”
With its World Cup opener just four days away, the U.S. team moved into its temporary home in Irvine on Monday, where the players found thousands of new Southern California neighbors waiting in line to watch them kick a ball.
After the U.S. announced that Orange County Great Park would be its base for at least the group stage of the tournament, the City of Irvine held a raffle for passes to see the team train in its only public workout.
Thirty-two thousand people applied and 5,500 received access on a warm Monday morning to watch the team rush through a light 45-minute practice that was notable primarily because it was the first in which injured center back Chris Richards was fully involved. Richards tore two ligaments in his left ankle playing for Crystal Palace, his English club team, on May 17 and hadn’t played or fully trained since. The team is rushing to get him ready in the hopes he can play at some point in the three-game group stage.
But the practice was also notable because it was the first at Championship Soccer Stadium, about 50 miles southeast of SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, where the U.S. will open its World Cup on Friday against Paraguay.
“[The] environment and facilities are crazy. It’s more than we expect,” U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino said of the venue. “We are so grateful.”
Championship Soccer Stadium is owned and managed by the city, which has leased it to the Orange County Soccer Club of the second-tier USL Championship. But the club was temporarily evicted in late April to make space for the national team — which is just fine with them.
U.S. men’s soccer player Chris Richards autographs the shirt of a young fan during a team practice Monday.
(Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times)
“How can you not be excited about the host nation training in your facility?” said Dan Rutstein, president of business operations of the Orange County club.
“We’re proud to be associated with the U.S. national team. We wouldn’t want to ever block anything, even if we could.”
(And they couldn’t, the city said.)
The Great Park is a sprawling 500-acre complex built on the site of the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, which closed in 1999 after 56 years training pilots for conflicts from World War II through the first Gulf War. In 2001, voters approved a proposal to convert the space into a public park and nature preserve, one which now includes, among other things, five sand volleyball courts, four basketball courts, 25 tennis courts, 12 softball and baseball fields, the ice arena where the Ducks practice and 25 soccer fields, including the pristine one FIFA just installed inside the 5,500-seat stadium.
“The idea was that this would be a quality facility, a great park that we hope will rival San Diego’s Balboa Park and other great parks across the country,” Irvine mayor Larry Agran said. “It took a lot of nurturing, a lot of time, a lot of work.”
Bringing the World Cup — or at least a World Cup team — to Irvine also took a lot of time and work. Agran said the city put out feelers about hosting a training base five years ago and made the first cut in 2024 when the Great Park was placed on a list of options distributed to tournament qualifiers.
Over the next two years, Rutstein said, about a dozen national teams sent representatives to have a look while Sam Zapatka, the operations manager of the USMNT, said he scouted 27 facilities from Seattle to San Diego. After his first visit to the Great Park, however, he said he stopped looking and in March, the team announced it would train in Irvine.
On Monday, when the players filed out of the stadium’s locker room, which FIFA expanded and upgraded, they were greeted by rhythmic clapping and chants of “USA! USA!”
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1.U.S. men’s soccer player Weston McKennie takes part in a training session at Orange County Great Park.(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)2.(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)3.U.S. men’s national soccer team coach Mauricio Pochettino waves to fans attending practice on Monday.4.Pochettino speaks to players after drills at Orange County Great Park on Monday.(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
“I think we’ve all been, I wouldn’t say overwhelmed, but possibly surprised by the excitement and the buzz,” said captain Tim Ream, who led the team onto the field. “Pulling up here with 5,500 fans ready to watch a training session is incredible.
“We get to train in an actual stadium with a good pitch. The support, really, from all the kids out there is amazing. You want to feel like you have a good home base, right? So really, we’re looking forward to being here.”
Especially after 5,000 of your neighbors show up for the housewarming party.
