His reputation as a magnificent host suffered an own goal Miami last Sunday in the Copa America final, which Argentina beat Colombia. Many fear that the incidents at Hard Rock Stadium could affect the City of the Sun and the United States’ hosting of the 2025 and 2026 FIFA Club World Cups.
There were injuries, arrests, suffocation and thousands of fans were in danger of death after, according to the South American Football Confederation, the stadium employees closed the doors to the public when an avalanche of fans, many of them without tickets, forced their way into the colossus where the final was to be played.
FIFA’s press department and the Miami 2026 World Cup Host Committee did not respond to emails sent by this reporter to inquire about the repercussions of last Sunday’s events at Hard Rock Stadium.
However, the local representative of one of the companies that sells tickets for major sporting events recalled that FIFA has only once in its history taken away a country’s hosting rights: it imposed “extravagant” conditions that Colombia could not meet and, consequently, gave Mexico the right to host the 1986 World Cup.
“Absolutely, they are not going to take the 2026 World Cup away from the United States, nor are they going to take away games from the Miami venue (it has seven) because of what happened last Sunday at the Hard Rock Stadium,” said Antonio Paz, who operates from Miami and has led caravans of fans since Mexico 1986, the last 10 consecutive World Cups.
“If FIFA did not take the World Cup away from South Africa 2010, Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022, which had huge problems, why would it take it away from the United States?” he added. “The Copa America USA 2024 was an event of the Conmebol and not from FIFA and there were problems only in Colombia’s last three games.”
Local officials said that the full responsibility for the organization of the 2024 Copa America was that of Conmebol. This entity took charge of the entire tournament and established its methods and protocols that differ from those applied in the local market.
“There are about 500,000 Colombians living in South Florida,” Paz added. “And many more came from all over. Based on my experience at these types of events, I estimate that there were between 10,000 and 20,000 of them on Sunday without tickets for the grand final against Argentina, a match that nobody wanted to miss.”
The incidents began before 5 pm, and the game was scheduled to start three hours later. Probably to save a good amount of money, there were no security perimeters as is the custom for the Super Bowl, for example. To relieve the pressure of the crowd, the doors were opened and the stampede began.
To contain the tumult, the gates were ordered to be closed. Police then took some time to identify those in the stands who had entered without a ticket taking advantage of the stampede and remove them. Sources inside the stadium say that there were about 20,000 people in the stands at that time.
By 8 p.m., around 50,000 people were outside the stadium, fighting to get in. Most of them had paid between $500 and $5,000 per ticket. The pressure was so great that stadium authorities, Conmebol, Concacaf and the police agreed to open the doors to ease the situation.
In the southwest area, only one gate was opened, causing a bottleneck. Because of the stampede, the ticket controllers did not ask anyone for tickets, thousands passed through; they knocked down the turnstiles where cell phones are placed to show tickets, desperate people asked people not to push. Everyone pushed their way in amidst shouts, desperation, panic and chaos.
In January 2022, eight people were killed and 50 injured at the Olembe stadium in Yaoundé, when a stampede broke out during a Cameroon national team match and fans found the gates locked.
A much worse scenario:
“If there were no deaths, it was a miracle of God,” said one fan. “How can the United States organize a World Cup if this disaster occurs at the Copa America?”
The mother of Argentine midfielder Alexis Mac Allister was caught up in the chaos and panic. “This is inhuman,” she later told a Rioplatense media outlet.
When the stadium was filled to capacity, the doors were closed. Many fans who had paid thousands of dollars for their tickets were not allowed in.
“CONMEBOL, with tens of millions in profits, failed, utterly and chaotically, to keep fans safe,” wrote Henry Bushnell on Yahoo Sports. “They were all victims of CONMEBOL, which brought this Copa America to the United States to make millions of dollars and apparently didn’t care how many people it would harm along the way.”