{"id":207925,"date":"2026-06-02T00:59:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T00:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/207925\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T00:59:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T00:59:09","slug":"how-penn-medicine-is-preparing-for-2026-fifa-world-cup-matches-in-philadelphia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/207925\/","title":{"rendered":"How Penn Medicine is preparing for 2026 FIFA World Cup matches in Philadelphia"},"content":{"rendered":"

The medical community in Philadelphia is gearing up for FIFA World Cup festivities and games<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Monday, Penn Medicine held a pep rally for its employees who will be on the front lines of medical care.<\/p>\n

“Penn has established a special network to serve the needs of FIFA throughout this event,” said Dr. P.J. Brennan, who is the chief medical officer of Penn Medicine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Penn is the official medical services provider for FIFA in Philadelphia. The city is expecting an influx of about half a million fans, thousands more linked to the teams, and international press.<\/p>\n

Brennan said medical coverage will be focused on two main locations: the stadium for the matches<\/a>, and Lemon Hill<\/a>, where fans will gather.<\/p>\n

“We’re staffing 79 shifts at the Fan Fest,” Brennan said. “We’re staffing all six matches outside the stadium in a medical tent and then inside the stadium on the pitch and for the player medical center.”<\/p>\n

The medical tents will be able to treat less serious issues, like dehydration and minor injuries. Serious cases will be transported to hospitals.<\/p>\n

“The intention is to bring the athletic injuries to Penn Presbyterian and the imaging and specialty care to [Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania],” Brennan said.<\/p>\n

Planning for potential medical issues for the FIFA World Cup has been coordinated by the Philadelphia Office of Emergency Management.<\/p>\n

“The one thing that the city does exceedingly well is implement large-scale events, whether it’s a papal visit, to the NFL draft, to political conventions,” said Meg Kane, who is the host city executive\/CEO for Philadelphia Soccer 2026.<\/p>\n

Kane is helping to coordinate safety for everyone, and that includes the potential for a large number of injuries.<\/p>\n

“There are mass casualty plans that are already in place,” Kane said. “What we’ve done is refined them based upon what the locations are.”<\/p>\n

The Philadelphia Health Department sent a document to healthcare providers<\/a> about infectious diseases to watch for throughout the World Cup.<\/p>\n

Federal officials say there will be enhanced airport screenings, along with travel restrictions for travel from countries experiencing the Ebola outbreak<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Penn says it has plenty of staff to cover the FIFA festivities and other hospitals will be ready to help as needed.<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The medical community in Philadelphia is gearing up for FIFA World Cup festivities and games.\u00a0 Monday, Penn Medicine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[54768,69,71,70,11868,2236],"class_list":["post-207925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-penn-med","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-soccer","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}