By Kevin Baxter | Los Angeles Times
The U.S. has played host to three World Cups and each time the final has been held in Southern California, at the Rose Bowl for the 1994 men’s tournament and 1999 women’s event and in what is now Dignity Health Sports Park at the end of the hastily organized women’s competition in 2003.
That’s not likely to happen in 2026 when a 48-team men’s tournament, the largest in history, is shared by the U.S., Mexico and Canada. More than half the games, including the final, will be played in the U.S. but it’s looking more and more likely that the Cup will be raised at AT&T Stadium outside Dallas and not in Los Angeles, with New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium also pushing hard to host the final.
If that happens, say people close to the local World Cup organizing committee who are not authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity, SoFi Stadium owner Stan Kroenke could pull his Inglewood venue out of the tournament and the World Cup could wind up bypassing Southern California entirely.
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