KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City Sports Commission has been working since 2017 to score the bid for the 2026 World Cup and is ready for Thursday's announcement.
"We are ready. Ready to find out. Shame on them if they don't pick us," said Kathy Nelson, president and CEO of the Kansas City Sports Commission.
But getting to this point was no easy journey.
"It was years and years of work. Budgets, revisiting budgets and working through all these different templates they wanted us to submit," Nelson said.
Kansas City wanted in, badly. That's where Nelson and her team created a pitch unlike any other.
"There were several tracks in the bid that we had to address. From hotel rooms, accommodations for teams, training sites, FIFA Fan Fest locations, transportation, safety and security, human rights, marketing and also just providing a general overview of KC as a potential host city," said Katherine Holland, director of KC 2026 FIFA World Cup Bid.
After multiple rounds, and many questions later, FIFA visited KC in October 2021.
"When they were here with us, some of them were here for more than three days," Nelson said. "The weather was great, they were able to get out and see things on their own, and, of course, with us, we went out to a soccer match out at Sporting, at Children's Mercy Park."
The Kansas City Sports Commission points to attendance at the FIFA Women's World Cup watch party at Power and Light in 2019, the announcement of the KC Current and World Cup messaging and decor ever-growing throughout the city as giveaway reasons to pick KC as a host city.
"Just really hammer home this idea that we are the soccer capital of America, we want this very badly and there is support here for it and we are capable of producing an event at this magnitude," Holland said.
Thursday, the wait is over.
"But I feel pretty confident that it's our day," Nelson said.
A watch party will be held at KC Live in the Power and Light District beginning at 3:30 p.m. Thursday as Kansas Citians wait to see if the city will be awarded any matches.
