Minton: Lessons Learned For '26, CONMEBOL Catastrophe Ruins Copa America 2024 Final
Behind the scenes, cracks were shown months before the tournament started that CONMEBOL wasn't prepared to run the tournament in the U.S.
The Copa America 2024 Final was a catastrophe.
In case you missed it, Argentina winning yet another trophy was overshadowed by the scenes before kick-off. Fans stormed ticket gates, mass amount of fans without tickets gained entry, a journalist was slammed to the ground by police, and fans who paid thousands of dollars to see the match were unable tog get in.
Oh and someone snuck booze in.
I honestly wish I could say that I was surprised. Leading up to the tournament it was clear that CONMEBOL was unorganized. Whether it be the complicated credential application process or the mistakenly sent emails, the organization seemed unprepared to a shocking degree.
I know it can come off as my American self giving the United States a free pass but I can wholeheartedly say that this is 99 percent on CONMEBOL. Hard Rock Stadium has hosted numerous high-profile matches and nothing like the events of Sunday had occurred. CONMEBOL seemed to not understand what it was getting itself into.
Looking ahead to the 2026 FIFA World Cup, there are valid reasons to be concerned this won’t happen again. Fans will be coming from all over the world not just the America’s.
Whether it be better security, better organization, or better preparedness, host sites will have taken notes and will study what went wrong in Miami. Fans without tickets should be unable to get even remotely close to the stadium. For stadiums such as Gillette Boston Stadium, Patriots Place provides possible security issues.
There will also likely need to be additional points of entry to alleviate stress on gates. If more gates were open at Hard Rock, maybe this situation wouldn’t have happened.
While I believe that the tournament will be more organized than Copa America, there has been a lack of information ever since the host cities were announced. Whether it be how the World Cup will affect other professional sports such as the Red Sox or how the stadiums plan to accommodate the influx of fans, there are a lot of question marks that remain regarding the tournament.
But the events of Sunday can not happen again. If they do, yet another stain will pollute the growth of soccer in the United States, no matter how Alexi Lalas wants to spin it.
This was a rerun of the Netflix documentary about English rowdies bum-rushing Wembley - so it can't be CONMEBOL that gets 99% of the blame, since that was UEFA.
Promotors obviously skimp on getting and giving security the necessary means to stop unticketed fans storming the venue. No profit in training and staffing these lower-wage security jobs, and the official police have no mentality for organizing safe crowd control.
Murdoch/Fox's coverage was abysmal, as it is for every Fox product.
Sure looked scary.