OFI to monitor FIFA World Cup hosting before 2028 LA Games

LA 2028 will be hosted across a much wider geographic area than Paris 2024. Pic: Frederic J. Brown / AFP via Getty Images

The Olympic Federation of Ireland (OFI) may choose to have personnel on the ground in the USA this summer to observe how the FIFA World Cup plays out against the backdrop of significant social and political unease in the country.

US president Donald Trump threatened last October to move World Cup matches from Boston if there were “unsafe conditions”. He made similar noises about the 2028 Olympics which are to be held in Los Angeles, if he felt they would not be “prepared properly”.

Trump had already signed an executive order two months previously in creating a White House task force for the LA Games. It named him as its leader. One LA city council member has voiced concerns over prospective ICE involvement.

“We’re very interested in what happens in the next year in terms of the World Cup, and it was similar to Paris in terms of security issues around Paris,” said the OFI’s CEO Peter Sherrard. “We had the [2023] Rugby World Cup as a sort of testing ground for that.

“So we're very interested, at this point, in what happens at the World Cup. But again, there's a long time between now and then and something always pops up at every Olympic Games in terms of the wider political things that happen around the world.

“We don't expect this Olympic Games to be any different, and the indication right now is that this subject won't go away for us. But I don't think we're at that point yet where we're considering it as a main talking point.” 

Trump only this month pulled hundreds of National Guard troops from California, Illinois and Oregon because of a court ruling. On January 7th, Renee Good was shot and killed an ICE agents in Minnesota, leading to protests in Minneapolis and other US cities.

No Irish athletes have shared concerns about competing in the LA Games with Team Ireland chef de mission Gavin Noble who has visited the California city for logistical trips four times since the last Olympics in Paris.

There will be 14 million tickets available for the Games. LA28 chairman Casey Wasserman has already promised that one-third of those will go on sale for a cost of €86 or less. One million Olympics and Paralympics tickets will come in below €24.

FIFA has been criticised for the high prices it is charging for this year’s World Cup, as well as for the use of dynamic pricing and a controversial resale system, both of which appear to be driving asking prices to unaffordable levels for millions of fans.

The LA Games will not be using dynamic pricing and there will be no repeat of FIFA’s resale platform which allow tickets to be sold for multiple times the face value, and from which the world football body will take a cut of 30% from each one.

“One thing I would say to people who are thinking of purchasing tickets is to go ahead and purchase tickets because all the indications we've seen for LA is that the market is really, really buoyant,” said Sherrard.

LA 2028 will be hosted across a much wider geographic area than Paris 2024 with 18 different zones covering Los Angeles County, Southern California and the one outlier that is Oklahoma where it will host canoe slalom and softball.

A Team Ireland House will be based on Long Beach and the Team Ireland athletes’ base has been narrowed down from an initial list of 42 to a facility in Santa Barbara or another at the Mt. SAC community college to the northeast of the city.