Soccer Football – FIFA Club World Cup – Group F – Fluminense v Borussia Dortmund – MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, New Jersey, U.S. – June 17, 2025 General view inside the stadium before the match REUTERS/Susana Vera
Alex Lasry, CEO of the NYNJ Host Committee for next summer’s World Cup, has “all the faith in the world” in his team’s transportation plans that when fans arrive in the Big Apple, they will experience nothing but “safe, efficient, and seamless” commutes around the city and to MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
The home of the NFL’s New York Giants and Jets is set to host eight matches for next year’s tournament, including five group stage matches and the final on July 19. Earlier this month, soccer fans learned that MetLife Stadium would be the venue for traditional soccer heavyweights Brazil, France, Germany, and England to duke it out during the group stage.
“[The draw] was so important, because this is when we learn the match times, so that allows us to take the next step in our planning,” Lasry, the former Milwaukee Bucks executive who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Travel and Tourism in the Biden Administration, told amNY.
“This is going to be the biggest thing that this city in this region has ever hosted, and people are going to have a great experience, traveling to the game and traveling back from the game.”
However, during this summer’s Club World Cup — a dress rehearsal for next year’s showpiece event, a significant minority of fans experienced long train delays and system malfunctions. NJ Transit, which runs trains from New York Penn Station to Secaucus Junction and further onto East Meadowlands — MetLife Stadium’s stop — moved around 153,000 people this summer. AmNY previously reported delays for the lesser-attended matches.
The stadium has also had trouble with past large-scale events, such as Super Bowl XLVIII and WrestleMania 2019, leaving fans at both events stranded on the East Meadowlands platform for hours.
When the World Cup rolls around next summer, fans will most likely pack out the 82,500 seats in MetLife Stadium, especially when stars like Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappe roll into town. That is almost 28,000 people more than the average attendance across the nine Club World Cup matches the stadium hosted this summer, and that figure is boosted by the 74,000 fans who attended the semifinals and the 81,118 who attended the final between Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain.
The public transportation system has pledged to increase its capacity to accommodate 12,000 people per hour for the tournament, while Lasry said they will be initiating a “massive messaging plan” for non-New Yorkers to navigate the public transportation system.
“Transportation is a key part, and it’s why we were awarded the finals,” Lasry said. “We got the best public transportation system in the country.”
For more on the World Cup, visit AMNY.com