Atlanta’s history of hosting important sporting events and the compact footprint of downtown are advantageous to the city’s hopes of hosting a World Cup game in 2026, FIFA officials and members of Atlanta’s bid committee said Friday.
Speaking at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which would host what the bid officials hope is a semifinal game, were two officials from a 23-person FIFA delegation, Vice President Victor Montagliani and Chiefs Tournaments and Events Officer Colin Smith, and Dan Corso, president of the Atlanta Sports Council, who said that Atlanta very much wants to add a World Cup to a resume that includes the Olympics, Super Bowls, Final Fours, MLS Cup and MLS All-Star game, among others.
“We know that Atlanta has now become a real football city, as in the real football globally,” Montagliani said.
Atlanta is one of 17 cities attempting to be selected for as many as 11 game sites in the U.S. Three sites in Mexico and two in Canada also will be selected as part of a bid won by three nations in 2018.
The delegation toured Boston on Wednesday and Nashville on Thursday. The group also will visit Orlando, Washington, Baltimore, New York/New Jersey, Philadelphia and Miami. Eight other U.S. candidate cities are scheduled for visits by the end of November. Atlanta also has bid to host the World Cup’s international broadcast center. That is a separate process from bidding to host a game.
FIFA will select the winning cities by the end of the first quarter in 2022. After the match schedule is completed, games and cities will be matched. There’s a chance that Atlanta will win a game that is not a semifinal. It is unlikely to host the final because the stadium’s capacity isn’t as large as some of its competitor’s. Grass will be put on top of the stadium’s turf should it host a game. Smith said that FIFA has no concerns with putting grass on top of turf.
In addition to the stadium, the delegation toured possible fan-event sites at the Home Depot Backyard, which is beside the stadium, and Centennial Olympic Park, which is less than two miles from the stadium.
Both are examples of the appeal of the convenience of having event sites close together.
“You can see it from our hotel, actually,” Smith said. “So I think it’s reinforced ... (that) what Atlanta provides, is very compact. And that’s obviously something which is very interesting for fans, and you know, people are coming to the stadium congregating around the stadium for matches.”
Each speaker, a group that included Atlanta United President Darren Eales and Steve Cannon, President of AMB Sports and Entertainment, hammered home points about the number of downtown hotel rooms (12,000), the nearby world-class airport, light-rail transportation, etc. in many of their answers.
The delegation also toured potential training sites for teams that could either be base sites for the entire tournament, or prep sites for whatever game is played at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Those included Atlanta United’s training ground, Kennesaw State, which hosts Atlanta United 2 games and sometimes Atlanta United, and Pace Academy.
Cannon said that Arthur Blank, who owns Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta United, and the Falcons, very much wants Atlanta to be selected as a site by FIFA.
“The opportunity to put Atlanta back on a global stage, much like we were in the Olympics in 1996, think about how much Atlanta has progressed since that time,” Cannon said. “So for Arthur, this is this part of the reason he built this stadium in downtown and didn’t, like many others, go out to some suburb outside of Atlanta, it was built for a reason in downtown so that we can host events just like this.”
Corso said an economic impact study has yet to be produced because the city has never hosted a World Cup. He said that when the city hosted the Super Bowl, the 10-day event resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars. A World Cup would last a month with possible multiple matches, implying that the impact would be much greater than hosting the NFL’s championship game.
Costs weren’t shared. Cannon said it won’t be cheap, but he believes it will be worth every bill.
“The whole world spotlight is going to be pointed on Atlanta, and all that Atlanta has to offer from a business community, from a place to live, work and play,” he said. “It’s a phenomenal, phenomenal story that doesn’t frankly get global coverage.
“And this is going to be a once-in-30-year opportunity to put that on a pedestal and begin to talk about it. I believe that there will be a trickle effect once other companies, CEOs, business leaders see what Atlanta has to offer. The economic impact won’t just be hotel rooms and airline tickets. It’s going to be people relocating and living here in Atlanta.”
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