After Copa América chaos, will Club World Cup and 2026 World Cup be safe? Inside the security challenge

Yahoo

a day ago

The panicked wails cut through suffocating heat, and told of terror. They came from distressed soccer fans last July 14, and became the soundtrack to 'inhumane' chaos. Mothers and daughters, fathers and friends, hinchas of Colombia and Argentina went to Hard Rock Stadium in Miami for the 2024 Copa América final. Some left traumatized after ticketless fans and security failures turned their evening of celebration into a nightmare.
They spent unending minutes crushed together, sweating and suffering, pushing helplessly toward previously breached and resealed gates. Some fainted. Some shrieked for help — for water that wasn't available, for calm that never really came. They 'posed an emergency situation due to the heightened risk of stampedes and potential injury,' a Miami-Dade County police chief later wrote. Authorities ultimately unsealed gates 'to alleviate' the crush, 'therefore avoiding fatal injuries,' but allowing thousands without tickets to enter.
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The entire scene spooked American soccer. It led to finger-pointing and fears that the next major international tournaments on U.S. soil — the 2026 World Cup and 2025 Club World Cup, which kicks off Saturday in Miami — could be similarly unsafe. It stunned New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, who, the morning after the madness, called a meeting.
'Let's review all protocols,' Murphy told a team that included leaders from MetLife Stadium, which is set to host the Club World Cup and World Cup finals. 'And let's make sure it never happens [here].'
That, for the past 11 months, has been a consistent theme of preparations for the two upcoming tournaments.
'I haven't been in a meeting since we've started this collaboration with FIFA and local, state, federal law enforcement,' says JP Hayslip, the VP of security at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, where 'that hasn't [been] brought up.'
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Nearly a year later, authorities say they've learned from the Copa América final. In interviews with Yahoo Sports, stadium officials and others expressed confidence in their planning. A few noted that FIFA, the global soccer governing body in charge, has come to the U.S. more prepared than CONMEBOL, the South American governing body that ran last year's Copa.
'There's definitely a more organized feel' this time around, one person familiar with the prep for both tournaments said.
But there are still concerns. Many stem from FIFA's unfamiliarity with the U.S.; and from U.S. authorities' unfamiliarity with international soccer, one of the widely cited factors in last summer's trouble.
Hard Rock Stadium, site of both the 2024 Copa América final and 2025 Club World Cup opener, has expanded its perimeter to prevent future crowd crushes. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Lessons learned from Copa América final
In one sense, to security experts, the near-fatal flaw that derailed the Copa final was obvious. Fans and cars 'entered the interior parking lots without prior screening,' Carmen Castro, chief of the Miami-Dade Police Department's Strategic Response Division, wrote in an after-action report obtained by Yahoo Sports. The lack of an outer security perimeter allowed un-ticketed fans 'an opportunity to gain access to the stadium,' Castro explained. And in 'overwhelming numbers,' they ruined the experience for thousands with tickets.
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Hard Rock Stadium officials, citing pending litigation, declined to discuss why there was no outer perimeter. In a forward-looking statement, though, a spokeswoman wrote: 'For FIFA Club World Cup 2025, fans should expect to pass through multiple security and ticket check points in order to enter Hard Rock Stadium. All fans will also have their tickets scanned as they enter the property.' A spokeswoman for the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office added that there would be 'three separate checkpoints that enclose the entire campus.'
This layered approach, experts say, disperses crowds both spatially and sequentially. Most problems are detected at initial 'soft checks' long before a fan reaches stadium gates, far away from what FIFA's guidelines call the 'final formal ticket check.' Those who do sneak or bust through can be tracked down in the vast open space between outer perimeter and concourse, without wreaking widespread havoc. 'This approach will ensure the great majority of nefarious non-ticketed fans remain on the exterior,' Castro wrote.
For the Club World Cup, most stadiums outside Miami actually won't extend their perimeters far beyond what they typically do for NFL or MLS games, according to multiple officials at those host venues. That is because they aren't expecting capacity crowds; interest in the Club World Cup, dampened by 'alarming' ticket prices, has been lukewarm in most markets.
But for next summer's 2026 World Cup, there will be secondary and tertiary perimeters. Although exact plans are still in development, Super Bowl-style structures will surround the stadiums. They're extended in part to accommodate media centers, hospitality areas and sponsor activations, but also to fortify security. Streets and parking lots will be blocked off. 'We don't want somebody that doesn't have a ticket to even get close to our building,' Hayslip says.
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Perimeters, though, are only part of the answer, a superficial solution. Deeper dynamics — the lack of stateside precedent, and the lack of institutional experience with mega soccer tournaments — is 'what is breeding the uncertainty,' one official involved in both preparations said. 'What happened at Copa, yeah, you can point to what the issue was: they needed an outer perimeter. … But it's more complicated than that.'
Law enforcement personnel and security agents outside Hard Rock Stadium during preparations for Saturday's opening match in the Club World Cup soccer tournament, Wednesday, June 11, 2025, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
FIFA's tournament model meets America's stadium machine
Seven of the World Cup's 11 U.S. stadiums have hosted Super Bowls. The other four have held a combined 21 NFL conference championships. They've all hosted Taylor Swift and dozens of other attractive events — all of which have contributed to two corollary challenges.
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On one hand, 'there is a risk' that experience can breed 'complacency,' says Mick O'Connell, a security consultant who's worked on megaevents; that 'muscle memory' could blind authorities to the unique characteristics of a World Cup and the 'changed environment they're gonna be operating in.'
On the other hand, multiple people told Yahoo Sports that there's been mild friction between stadium officials and FIFA, which is more accustomed to operating men's World Cups on relatively blank slates, in venues without pre-existing security staffs and systems, venues that were purpose-built for the tournament.
'It's clearly been a challenge for them,' Hayslip says. 'It's blatantly obvious that they're not used to this. They always revert back to Qatar' and the 2022 World Cup, whereas the U.S. stadiums revert back to Super Bowls and so on. Meshing those two perspectives into one unified strategy has not been seamless.
Experience, of course, is primarily an asset. 'You've got institutional knowledge of what works and what doesn't work,' says Joe Coomer, the VP of security at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. O'Connell clarifies: "It's good to have muscle memory with regard to systems, procedures and practices that you can rely upon." Hayslip says that he and colleagues have tried 'to reassure [FIFA] that not only do we 'know what we're doing,' we've experienced it.'
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But they have also listened.
They have traveled to England and Germany, to Euro and Champions League finals, to see how those with decades of experience in international soccer do it.
Because they know that World Cups are different. 'We've done the NFC championship many times, but this is not that,' Hayslip assures. 'This is a different environment, a different culture, … a different, probably more passionate fan base than any of us have ever experienced.'
For those who've never hosted high-level international soccer, Coomer has a two-word message: 'Buckle up!'
In workshops and on scouting trips, they've learned how fans from various countries express that passion. 'We've all got our eyes on those Argentinian teams, those Brazilian teams,' Coomer says. They've studied videos and brought in foreign experts — less to crack down on the passion, more to ensure they don't misinterpret it as aggression or troublemaking. Coomer and a few Atlanta law enforcement leaders went to Los Angeles for last month's Club World Cup play-in game, where they encountered festive smoke and constant chanting. If they encounter it in Atlanta this month, or next summer, Coomer explains, 'we don't want it to be the first time [officers] react to it.'
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What they also must understand, experts add, is how visitors might react to American policing. 'You're not policing your own citizens anymore,' says Cliff Stott, an expert in crowd psychology. 'You're policing foreign nationals [who] have different culture norms, different values, different relationships with the police.' They may or may not respond well to K-9s. They may or may not be comfortable chatting with an officer — who may or may not speak their language.
Communicating with those foreign fans will be crucial, experts say, especially as they hop from one U.S. city to the next, where tactics and rules might be distinct.
Miscommunications can lead to confrontations, which can lead to chaos, which is precisely what all these security measures are designed to prevent.
Experts also warn against over-policing, which can backfire or take the fun out of the event.
Officials hope improved protocols will deliver a safe, enjoyable environment for fans traveling from around the world. (Photo by Roger Wimmer/)
(Roger Wimmer/ISI Photos via Getty Images)
'It's a classic all-threat, all-hazard situation'
For the 2026 World Cup, within and beyond the 16 host cities, there will also be a vast but unseen network of federal, local and international agencies gathering intel and responding to it.
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This was another takeaway from the Copa América final. Despite massive gatherings outside team hotels; brawls in Charlotte at a semifinal earlier that week; and reports of difficulties in Texas at previous matches, the possibility of gate-crashing 'was not gathered and shared by any intelligence source,' Castro wrote in the after-action report. 'Had this information been known, our plan would have been modified for this contingency.'
In 2026, information must flow throughout a messy web of police departments, sheriff's offices, FIFA, security companies and other private entities. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will also be heavily involved. The World Cup final and other spotlighted games have been designated SEAR 1 events, meaning they're of 'national and/or international importance' and 'require extensive federal interagency support.' The rest will be SEAR 2 events, the second-highest rating. Mexico and Canada, the World Cup's co-hosts, will each have their own nodes as well in what O'Connell calls 'a spider's web' of command centers.
All involved will prepare extensively. 'It's a classic all-threat, all-hazard situation,' O'Connell says. They'll prepare for terrorism and gun violence, for cyber attacks and weather, for drunkenness and medical crises. Nowadays, with the Club World Cup near, they are in daily meetings, adapting and planning. When I interviewed Coomer, his team and FIFA's had just completed an hourslong tabletop exercise. When I interviewed Hayslip, he and Philadelphia were prepping for a 'full-scale exercise,' a test of emergency preparedness initiated by DHS with a view toward 2026.
FIFA did not make its security chiefs available for interviews. But among organizers, generally, there is confidence that the Club World Cup will pass without major incident. In Miami, where it kicks off Saturday with Lionel Messi and Inter Miami against Al Ahly, security budgets have increased compared to last summer. And 'there will be a significant law enforcement and security footprint in and around the stadium,' the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office spokeswoman wrote, 'to ensure public safety.'