By Ryan Schwach
Two-time National Women’s Soccer League champions Gotham FC will soon call the World’s Borough home, joining New York City Football Club at the soon-to-be-completed Etihad Park in Willets Point.
The long-rumored move will see the women’s club join NYCFC in 2028, a year after the men’s club begins playing at the stadium. Gotham FC has played its home matches across the Hudson in New Jersey since its founding two decades ago.
The club’s executives joined local officials to announce the impending move on Tuesday at City Hall.
“Soccer is the people’s game, New York City is the people’s city, and for decades to come, the people will now be able to watch Gotham FC show off the world’s game in the World’s Borough,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said. “Instead of begging their parents to have to take them to New Jersey, girls growing up in Jackson Heights, Sunnyside and Flushing will now be able to get on the 7 train after school and watch some of the greatest soccer players in the world go to work.”
Gotham, the reigning NWSL champs, will be another piece in the growing mosaic at Willets Point, where the city is constructing an entirely new neighborhood alongside Etihad Park. Nearby, Mets owner Steve Cohen has begun constructing Metropolitan Park, a casino and entertainment complex. The neighborhood is currently anchored by Citi Field, the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center and Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
“What a tremendous moment this is for young girls across Queens, and generations of young girls to come,” said Queens Borough President Donovan Richards. “They will have heroes to idolize right there in their own backyard. They will have even more reason to fall in love with this beautiful sport.”
Carolyn Tisch Blodgett, the team’s controlling governor, said that a new, permanent home for Gotham marks a new chapter for the team, which was founded in 2006.
“Etihad Park is where the next chapter of Gotham begins,” she said. “It’s where our supporters will create new match-day rituals, and it’s where an entirely new generation of fans will fall in love with Gotham for the very first time.”
“Gotham is no longer borrowing the future, we’re building our own,” she added.
Etihad Park is set to open in the spring of next year.
The city broke ground on New York City Football Club’s future stadium in Willets Point in December 2024, a little more than two years after then-Mayor Eric Adams first announced that the soccer club would one day call Queens home.
Once finished, the $780 million Etihad Park will seat 25,000 soccer fans and will be the first fully electric professional sports stadium in New York City. It will also be the first stadium dedicated solely to professional soccer.