While the\u00a0final matches\u00a0have been played in Philadelphia for the\u00a0FIFA World Cup, the host\u00a0city\u00a0reported\u00a0strong attendance\u00a0and sales during its six-match\u00a0run.\u00a0<\/p>\n
FIFA provided a report breaking down the impact the World Cup had on Philadelphia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nearly 410,000\u00a0fans\u00a0attended the six matches at Lincoln Financial\u00a0Field, with\u00a0over 190 countries and territories\u00a0represented.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Five consecutive matches sold out and the stadium reached 99.9% capacity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fans\u00a0in attendance\u00a0purchased\u00a0an abundance of concessions during the six\u00a0matches.\u00a0The top selling food item was hot dogs, with over 55,000 purchases. Officials also said 46,000 soft pretzels, 37,000 crab fries, and 26,500 cheesesteaks were sold while over 290,000 beers were consumed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To prevent food waste, any food from the stadium not sold during each match was distributed to food banks across the Philadelphia region. More than\u00a015,000 pounds\u00a0of food were\u00a0ultimately supplied\u00a0to support\u00a0local\u00a0food\u00a0insecurity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The match-specific scarves and FIFA World Cup 2026 pins were the fastest-selling items during each match, selling out at every game played at the stadium.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0been a pleasure and an honor to see how Philly truly embraced the FIFA World Cup. With ordinary citizens welcoming the hundreds of thousands of fans from around the world and the Philadelphia Soccer 2026 team hosting one of the most attended FIFA Fan Festivals in the U.S., the passion here was made abundantly clear to the millions who tuned in across the globe,\u201d said\u00a0Rebecca Schuchart, FIFA World Cup 2026 Host City Director for Philadelphia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Looking towards the\u00a0U.S.\u00a0versus Belgium match\u00a0<\/p>\n
All eyes\u00a0will be\u00a0on the United States matchup against Belgium\u00a0on Monday, July 6, after FIFA reinstated\u00a0U.S. striker Folarin Balogun.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Balogun, 25, has become one of the U.S. team\u2019s breakout stars\u00a0during the 2026 FIFA\u00a0World Cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During the U.S. team\u2019s\u00a0knockout stage game against Bosnia-Herzegovina on Wednesday, July 1, 2026,\u00a0Balogun\u00a0received\u00a0a red card\u00a0after\u00a0inadvertently stepping on the back of the leg of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Tarik\u00a0Muharemovi\u0107.\u00a0<\/p>\n
FIFA announced Sunday, following an investigation into the incident by its Disciplinary Committee, that Balgun\u2019s suspension would be suspended for one year.\u00a0He will now be able to play in the match against Belgium.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Folarin Balogun commits another infringement of a similar nature and gravity during the probationary period, the suspension shall be revoked and the sanction enforced without prejudice to any additional sanction imposed for the new infringement,\u201d said FIFA in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Royal Belgian Football Association\u00a0filed\u00a0an appeal early Monday morning challenging\u00a0FIFA\u2019s decision\u00a0to wave the penalty of Balogun\u2019s red card. The FIFA-appointed appeals judge\u00a0later\u00a0dismissed\u00a0the appeal.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Round of 16 game between the U.S.\u00a0and Belgium will begin at\u00a08\u00a0p.m.\u00a0ET\u00a0at Lumen Field in Seattle, Washington.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fans in Philadelphia will be able to\u00a0watch the match at FIFA Fan Festival Philadelphia, which will be open from 2 p.m. to 11 p.m.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the\u00a0final matches\u00a0have been played in Philadelphia for the\u00a0FIFA World Cup, the host\u00a0city\u00a0reported\u00a0strong attendance\u00a0and sales during its six-match\u00a0run.\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[29464,2233,69,71,70,2236],"class_list":["post-236936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-2026-world-cup","tag-fifa","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236936","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=236936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}