By Miguel Gutierrez and Leonardo Benassatto
LOS ANGELES, June 12 (Reuters) – The global soccer spotlight turned to Los Angeles on Friday, with organizers hoping that enthusiasm for the first World Cup tournament on U.S. soil since the 1990s would outweigh concerns about ticket pricing and entry visas that have overshadowed much of the run-up.
Co-hosts Mexico got the party started on Thursday, while Toronto welcomed fans to Canada’s first match on Friday afternoon. The U.S. comes next, with an opening ceremony at SoFi Stadium featuring pop star Katy Perry at 4:30 p.m. local time (2330 GMT), followed by the U.S. soccer team getting their tournament underway with a match against Paraguay.
Soccer remains a relative minority sport in the U.S., with around a third of Americans telling pollsters they planned to watch the World Cup, well below many other competing nations. The sporting focus in the last week has been on the dramatic run of the New York Knicks in the NBA finals, with the team just one win away from ending a five-decade title drought.
But football fever is also growing, especially as fans pour in from around the world. Midtown Manhattan was a blaze of color on Thursday and Friday as Knicks fans in navy basketball jerseys mixed amiably with Brazil soccer fans in yellow banging drums and Mexican followers in jade green celebrating the first World Cup win of the tournament.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani – wearing a Knicks vest under his suit jacket – encouraged New Yorkers to attend the fan festivals and soccer exhibitions taking place across the city.
“When we celebrate the World Cup, we are celebrating a working-class sport and the working people who play it,” said Mamdani, a longtime fan of English Premier League champions Arsenal. “It is the rare occasion that brings the world together.”
In Boston, Scottish fans entertained the neighbors near their Airbnb with an early-morning bagpipes recital, NBC10 Boston reported, while in Los Angeles U.S. supporters Chris Powers and two companions donned stars-and-stripes top hats and waistcoats.
“It’s amazing,” said Powers. “Thirty-two years ago I was, like, a huge fan of seeing all the matches played in America. So great to see everything back on our shores.”
The build-up to Friday’s kickoff has been clouded by a number of concerns, including over the issuing of visas under the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, which has taken a hardline on immigration issues.
Some fans have expressed anger or hesitancy about traveling to the U.S. following months of news reports of bans and restrictions, and a Somali referee was barred from entering this week.
Many supporters say the cost of attending has become prohibitive, with both ticket prices and travel rates skyrocketing.
A dilemma over how to accommodate the Iranian soccer team after the U.S. and Israel launched attacks on Iran in February eventually wound up with a plan for them to train in Mexico and cross into the U.S. for their matches.
It is still unclear what will happen in Seattle on June 26, when Iran are due to play Egypt in a match that local organizers have said will be an LGBT Pride game, a designation both countries’ football associations have vociferously opposed.
And there have been worries about the North American summer heat.
Paraguay fan Benjamin Fretes, outside a sunny Los Angeles stadium ahead of Friday’s game, acknowledged that his experience had been “a little strange”. Locals he had met seemed unaware of the existence of either football or Paraguay, he said with a chuckle. He was in good spirits, though.
“It’s great,” he said. “A really good experience.”
(Reporting by Miguel Gutiérrez and Leonardo Benassatto in Los Angeles; additional reporting by Christine Kiernan in New York; writing by Rosalba O’Brien; editing by Clare Fallon)
