Zohran Mamdani says he’d welcome Trump to World Cup in NYC area, explains tournament czar’s role
President Donald Trump has threatened to take the World Cup out of the New England region if Boston’s Democratic mayor, Michelle Wu, did not crack down on crime.
Well, no threat has yet been made to the New York area, which will host the final on July 19, 2026, and New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, who Trump once called a “Communist lunatic,” told Martha MacCallum on Wednesday he would welcome Trump and his soccer-loving son, Barron, to MetLife Stadium.
Trump attended the Club World Cup final at the New Jersey stadium back in July.
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Last month, Mamdani announced that he wanted to appoint a czar for the games in East Rutherford, N.J., and in speaking with MacCallum, he outlined the czar’s role and how it would be a huge win not just for tourists but for New York residents.
“The World Cup is the largest sporting event in the world, and it’s as if no one has been thinking or talking about it here in New York City government. It’s coming next summer to the city, we’re going to have billions of people watching,” he said. “The World Cup czar is going to ensure that this is a tournament that New Yorkers remember as well, not just those who visit us. That it’s a tournament that will signify an increase not only in tourism but in small business and in exploration of this city.
“For too long, we’ve had these kinds of opportunities that we just passed up on. We recently had the 400th anniversary of New York City – most people have no idea, because the city didn’t do anything about it.”
Last month, Mamdani called out dynamic pricing for the World Cup, calling “$6,000” tickets “absurd.”
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“What we’re seeing is that FIFA’s approach to the ticket process of the World Cup is both without precedent in their own administration of previous World Cups and is also an approach that will price out so many New Yorkers from actually being able to be in the stands,” he said on “Pablo Torre Finds Out.”
Mamdani recently called for 15% of tickets to be set aside at discounted prices for residents and asked FIFA, soccer’s governing body, to reverse a plan to set ticket prices based on demand.
Tickets will start at $60 for group-stage matches and increase to $6,730 for the final, officials said earlier in September. However, pricing could fluctuate under the demand-based pricing model.
The Associated Press and Fox News Digital’s Louis Casano contributed to this report.
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