![\"Haze](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/bbc_us_articles_995\/afc1355236dd666a8d3ff95a9023b520.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nOfficials in New York and New Jersey have issued an air quality health alert because of wildfire smoke just days before the World Cup final.<\/p>\n
Haze caused by Canadian wildfires has blanketed the New York region, prompting officials to urge residents to reduce outdoor exertion and stay indoors if possible.<\/p>\n
New York New Jersey Stadium – which is in East Rutherford, New Jersey – will host the final between Spain and Argentina on Sunday, 19 July (20:00 BST).<\/p>\n
Conditions deteriorated just before Spain landed in New Jersey on Wednesday night, a day after their semi-final victory over France in Texas.<\/p>\n
Spain spent Thursday training outdoors, looking unaffected by the air quality. They have not commented on whether they are concerned.<\/p>\n
Argentina, meanwhile, stayed in Georgia after their semi-final win over England, but will begin training in New Jersey on Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Contractor Dan Edgar said his daughter Kaitlynn was practising at New York New Jersey Stadium on Thursday, where she will be dancing and performing for the final.<\/p>\n
“She’s texting me that it’s bad out there,” he said. “It’s hard to dance, she says you can feel the air, it’s heavy.”<\/p>\n
The smoke-filled sky and extremely hot temperatures have already been experienced by some footballers. The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) went ahead with a match between Gotham FC and Washington Spirit on Wednesday night in front of a record crowd at Citi Field in Queens despite the orange haze.<\/p>\n
The air quality index meant players were mandated to take two breaks per half according to NWSL policy.<\/p>\n
Washington Spirit’s Trinity Rodman said after the match that the air quality was rough, and in her opinion, they shouldn’t have played.<\/p>\n
Rodman said: “Not to make excuses at all, but I think on both sides we were all like, ‘another break, another break, another break’.”<\/p>\n
New Yorkers are relieved conditions are not as intense as they were in June 2023, when the skies turned completely orange because of Canadian wildfires.<\/p>\n
New York New Jersey Stadium is an open-air facility, but at the moment there is no suggestion the World Cup final, with more than 80,000 spectators and a star-studded half-time show, will be affected.<\/p>\n
The air quality in the area is expected to improve on Friday while forecast rain on Saturday should further help disperse some of the smoke.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the Major League Soccer match between Chicago Fire and Vancouver Whitecaps was postponed because of poor air quality conditions in the Chicago area.<\/p>\n
Former Bayern Munich and Barcelona striker Robert Lewandowski was set to make his debut for Chicago having joined as a free agent last month.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Smoke from wildfires in Canada arrived in New York City on 15 July [Getty Images]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Officials in New York and New Jersey have issued an air quality health alert because of wildfire smoke…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5805,4590,112996,34934,1066,9,24,55,54,56,112609,68321],"class_list":["post-298462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-2026-world-cup","tag-air-quality","tag-canadian-wildfires","tag-east-rutherford","tag-new-jersey","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-trinity-rodman","tag-washington-spirit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}