Monday, February 16, 2009

New Cowboys Stadium to Host World Cup Games?

Sunil Gulati, President of the U.S. Soccer Foundation, thinks so:

"It's a huge stadium," Gulati said in a teleconference in which he announced USSF has submitted a declaration of interest to host either World Cup. "It's a phenomenal new stadium and, frankly, it was built with soccer in mind. So the field capacity and size are perfect for the World Cup, and it's something we would certainly be interested in."

Cowboys spokesman Brett Daniels said it was too early to comment, but he did confirm there will be one or more international soccer games this fall in the new stadium, which has capacity to seat 100,000.

The last time the World Cup was played in the U.S., it was the Cotton Bowl that hosted several first round games. The new stadium would be a vast improvement, and might be the highlight of any tournament. I'm intrigued by the latter paragraph as well. What games do they have in mind? The U.S. is already slated to play their home World Cup qualifying friendlies at Chicago, Utah and D.C. (and they don't play their qualifying matches around these parts anyway.) I have no idea who's visiting the U.S. later this year, so I'm very intrigued as to who they have lined up. Hopefully we'll hear more soon.

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