Chiefs, Sporting KC see COPA soccer matches as warmup for hosting World Cup – Kansas City Business Journal

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The rare appearance of the COPA America soccer tournament in the U.S. will give Kansas City an opportunity for a test run ahead of the 2026 World Cup.
Kansas City is about to host two key soccer matchups in the COPA America Tournament, offering a great opportunity to learn a few lessons in advance of hosting the FIFA World Cup in 2026.
Founded in 1916, COPA America is a men’s tournament to determine the champions of South America, though it has invited teams from North America since the 1990s. COPA has held matches in the United States only two times in the tournament’s 108-year history, so Kansas City hosting two matches is a rare treat.
The first will be played at 5 p.m. June 25 at Children’s Mercy Park, between Peru and Canada. The next match will be at 8 p.m. July 1 at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium, between the U.S. and Uruguay. Tickets are available for both matches, though the match at Children’s Mercy is close to being sold out.
“Peru has won this tournament twice, and they’ll be at our place,” Sporting Kansas City CEO Jake Reid said. “Uruguay has won the tournament 15 times, and they’ll be taking on the United States. So these are some pretty marquee matchups here in Kansas City for the group stage. They are big events that are a big deal to those fan bases, so I think we’ll see a good number of their respective fan bases coming into our market for these matches. It should be a great experience for everyone in the community.”
Fans most likely won’t stick around for a week or longer like they will for the World Cup, he said, but a lot of them probably will stay for a couple of days.
“I think any time you host international events, you always learn things,” Reid said. “What different countries prefer and how they go about things, it’s different than what we do on the club side on a regular basis. But we’re fortunate that we have such great facilities here in Kansas City, which is part of the reason why we got six World Cup matches in 2026. All that matters when you’re talking about luring these big games in these big tournaments to our city.”
Matt Kenny, executive vice president of Arrowhead operations and events, said he sees the COPA match as a good warmup for hosting World Cup matches in two years.
“FIFA will be closely watching the COPA match in terms of what they can learn and what we can test for the upcoming World Cup matches,” Kenny said. “KC2026 is using this as an opportunity to educate, inform and promote the World Cup. So there is a nice opportunity here to host partners and individuals throughout the region to kind of showcase what this type of international event would look like. It’s beyond FIFA and stadium operations. There’s a regional opportunity to highlight world-class, international soccer — meaningful matches — two years ahead of the World Cup. It’s a good window for us to build even more momentum in the business and political community.”
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