Quote:
Originally Posted by ocman
I read one story that got picked up by everyone that Sofi is too narrow to host it. FIFA wants 80,000 capacity seating. Sofi is 70,000. It can expand to more but not while taking seats out to expand the field, supposedly. But then they awarded Sofi the LA venue over the Rose Bowl (which actually DID host the only World Cup in the US with a seating capacity of 89,000) knowing this, so there’s also belief that FIFA is just being FIFA in trying to con a better deal for itself. But for now, I would put it out of the running.
So with that in mind, Dallas and Metlife are the front runners. I’m betting Dallas because of the retractable roof and accessibility. Metlife always has a chance of rain. Dallas can accomodate 100,000 but not for the World Cup. It’s expected to be around 80,000. Metlife at 82,000.
Ultimately it’ll come down to who can wine and dine FIFA the best.
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Instead of adapting the game to existing stadiums, they keep forcing the width thing to force cities to contribute money to build "soccer-specific" stadiums. It's like how the NFL created revenue sharing *except* for luxury boxes to force team owners to push for new NFL stadiums and throw away about 10 multi-purpose stadiums. All of those stadiums could have still been going (Veteran's, Riverfront, Three Rivers, Bush, etc.) - after all, RFK stadium is one of them and it's still alive.
I played a lot of soccer on many different-sized fields. The width made no difference. I don't recall a single time when the coach brought up the size of a field we were going to play at. It's like baseball - nothing fundamentally changes about the game.