The bold image that should endure from Copa America 2024 was the bemused smile Lautaro Martinez couldn’t suppress after scoring the winning goal for Argentina shortly before the end of extra time in the tournament final.
Or perhaps it should be the tears that ran down Lionel Messi’s unshaven cheeks when he realised that his right ankle, which grew to three times its normal size as he reclined on the bench, would prevent him from influencing the outcome of Argentina’s battle against a ferocious Colombian side.
No, obviously, it should be Messi’s urgency to insist that his veteran teammates Nicolas Otamendi and Angel Di Maria join him in the honour of lifting the Copa del Rey trophy in what will likely be his final game for the national team.
But none of them will be the most indelible image, right?
What will be remembered, as with the Euro 2021 final at Wembley Stadium and the Champions League title game a year later in Paris between Liverpool and Real Madrid, will be the horrific scenes of football fans crowded at gates, piled up at entrances for hours and kick-offs delayed interminably.
BREAKING: The gates at Hard Rock Stadium have been breached and dozens of fans have begun arriving for the 2024 game. #America Cup Final. Police are working hard to try to stop the flow of people. image.twitter.com/fkoMMYGk8K
— Kyle Bonn (@the_bonnfire) July 14, 2024
The Argentina-Colombia match that was scheduled to start at 8 p.m. EDT didn’t finish until well after midnight, as it didn’t kick off until more than 80 minutes in and then needed an additional 30 minutes to establish a winner.
Police had to rescue the children from the crowd trying to get in. Many people took to social media to complain that they had arrived at the game with tickets but ended up leaving because they were not allowed in – the intruders had apparently filled the stands to capacity.
It appears to be a blunder by American football authorities: they failed to plan adequately for security, failed to ensure that only ticket holders could access the stadium, and failed to establish an access plan that would allow everyone who was entitled to enter in time to watch the event they had paid for. Many in the sporting world say it is a testament to the country’s lack of preparedness to host the FIFA World Cup in two summers’ time.
Yet the U.S. Soccer Federation had almost nothing to do with the 2024 Copa America beyond fielding a team. CONMEBOL, the South American confederation that has organized the event exclusively at venues on its continent for nearly a century, decided to exclude the nation’s governing body from planning and execution for one simple reason: money.
Well, and jealousy too.
The 2016 Copa América Centenario was a special event organized to celebrate the tournament’s centenary.He Shortly after it was awarded to the U.S., officials from the North and South American confederations became embroiled in the FIFA corruption case pursued by the U.S. Department of Justice. US Soccer stepped into the leadership vacuum, accepted the risk and responsibility of hosting the tournament, and earned $75 million as a result.
This time, CONMEBOL wanted all of that, and so it simply paid a fee to the U.S. Soccer Federation for the right to play the tournament here. So the South Americans should get all the smoke for behaving like the worst Airbnb guests: They apparently failed to ensure adequate security for the Uruguayan players’ families at their semifinal against Colombia in Charlotte; they failed to ensure that the grass pitches laid on artificial turf were properly installed and fit for the competition; they chose not to insist on pitches of a FIFA-regulation width; and they oversaw absurd refereeing both inside the stadiums and in the replay booths.
Following the defeat to Colombia, Uruguay’s players entered the stands at Bank of America Stadium and began throwing punches at each other. Among those in front was Liverpool striker Darwin Núñez. image.twitter.com/VE3unKObSa
— Kyle Bonn (@the_bonnfire) July 11, 2024
It was an attempt to raise funds from CONMEBOL, and that is how it developed from the beginning.
Protecting Hard Rock Stadium should have been relatively easy. It’s 17 miles from Miami and Fort Lauderdale, and is surrounded by acres of parking lots. But that would have required proper planning, setting up the kind of security perimeter one would encounter if attending a Super Bowl, for example: No one approaches the stadium without the proper ticket or credential. There was no such device at the Hard Rock on Sunday night.
Think the Americans don’t know how to put on a big event? The folks at Indiana Sports Corp just installed a pool in a football stadium and drew more than a quarter of a million people to watch the U.S. Olympic trials over the course of a week.
The NCAA has hosted its men’s basketball Final Four at such a venue every season since 1997 and this year had a crowd of 74,423 for the championship game between Connecticut and Purdue.
And, back to the topic at hand, the United States was a complete soccer novice in 1994, when the World Cup first came to its hometown. Just 3.6 million people, an average of 68,991 per session, attended the 52 games that comprised that tournament. Thirty years later, that remains a record, even though subsequent tournaments included eight more teams and a dozen more games.
Five years later, the United States revolutionized women’s soccer with a 1999 World Cup that attracted 1.2 million spectators for its 32 matches, including an impressive 90,185 for the classic final between the United States and China.
The CONMEBOL people saw this and thought it would be easy. With Messi’s name on it, it was a can’t-miss proposition. And to a certain extent, they were right. Even with the exorbitant ticket prices and obvious disorganization, more than 1.5 million people turned out — and we’re only counting those who came in to watch the games, not those who were forced to abandon their plans last Sunday.
But the South American Confederation forgot that they were playing as visitors. It is not their territory and they should have trusted those who know it.
FIFA will be responsible for the World Cup in North America in 2026 and will work with the three participating federations (Canada, Mexico and the United States) to ensure it is a great success. The fields will be wide enough, the grass green enough, the stadiums safe and the referees (mostly) competent.
South America will send a bunch of teams, and some of them will almost certainly perform brilliantly. Perhaps Messi will stick around to see if he can become the first player to lift a championship trophy at four consecutive major tournaments. Either way, rest assured that no one will leave wondering why the event was a disaster or why the ticket they bought and held in their hands outside the stadium didn’t let them in to enjoy the party.
