July 4 – On June 14 the city of Los Angeles in California was being swarmed by ICE agents, communities were being torn apart and families broken apart, daily protests had seen areas of the city closed, and US president Donald Trump had called in the National Guard and even US Marines from Camp Pendleton to strike fear into the heart of a state that he says is out of control.
Perhaps not the greatest time or the best place to kick off your most important regional football competition, the 18th edition of the Concacaf Gold Cup.
Surely no-one would be interested? Surely there were more important things to take care of? Who is going to turn up?
Well, pretty much everyone and what a remarkable statement of community and solidarity through a simple game of football took place in Hollywood Park that Saturday evening – all under the watchful and presumably perplexed gaze of the ICE agents camped out at the rear of the aptly named Orange car park.
From that point on the Gold Cup has excited, united, surprised, shocked, stunned and delivered in only the way a major football tournament can.
Concacaf general secretary Philippe Moggio (pictured), when asked if he expected this tournament to deliver to quite this level given the wider social situation, beds his answer in the power of football and its enduring ability to be relevant.
“We did expect them (fans to turn up) for many reasons. The Gold Cup is a tremendously important opportunity for the nations with World Cup 2026 qualification coming up.
“Fans follow teams and gauge how they are doing, this is a great opportunity for them to connect,” he continued. The key word here being connect. “We have seen excitement and seen it build from round to round.”
Honduras and Guatemala are the best examples of that and the excitement and energy building round their performances.
Honduras opened with a 6-0 hammering at the hands of Canada but then turned their tournament around to make it all the way to the semi-finals.
“Four years ago Guatemala were a federation going through difficult times, They were under a normalisation committee but they have done a great job in building the foundations. In the Nations League they have are now in Group A. The last time they were in the semi-final of the Gold Cup was in 1996.”
Every nation at this Gold Cup has had a story to tell and an ambition to fulfil. Underpinning that opportunity has been the platform built by Concacaf.
“We are incredibly pleased with the overall performance on and off the pitch,” said Moggio.
On the pitch there is little doubt that this has been the highest overall standard of play seen in any Gold Cup. With only two exceptions matches every match has been tight with teams pushing each other to the wire. It didn’t just happen out of nowhere. For Moggio it is the result of a process.
“We believe that this is one of the benefits of four editions of the Nations League where teams play consistently over two cycles. They have the opportunity to compete and progress and that excitement keeps building,” said Moggio.
Improved performance has been equally exponential off the pitch. The Gold Cup has had its largest broadcast distribution ever into 114 countries with ratings setting records almost without exception within domestic markets.
In the US, Fox recorded 1.9 million viewers for the USA-Guatemala semi-final, a record English language TV audience for a match that was not a final.
“We have doubled the revenue opportunity on sponsorship to an unprecedented level,” said Moggio, without giving away precise numbers. “We now have 20 sponsor partners, six of whom are new to this edition. We have seen a lot of activation and excitement around Gold Cup activities.”
Some of those sponsor partners are long term partners while others are sampling the Gold Cup for the first or second time. Moggio is confident that the experience and passion of the Gold Cup will have motivated them to go again.
Development for Concacaf is not just about more fans and more commercial partners, but also in ensuring their Gold Cup product has the infrastructure and platform to provide the highest standards possible on the pitch.
Key to that has been changes like going to straight to penalty shoot-outs in the knock-out rounds up to the final for “player welfare reasons. We know the calendar is heavy and this made sense to protect the players a little… Our focus was to ensure we put on a safe event for the fans and the players and officials.”
That has involved a continued investment in enhancing the competition environment for all teams from upgraded hotels to improved travel, and where possible reducing that stress. Concacaf has also more than doubled prize money across the tournament. The winning team on Sunday will take home $4 million, in 2023 Mexico received $2 million for winning the final.
Another key initiative has been improving the quality of the pitches in stadiums where grass pitches have had to be laid. “We have achieved this through preparation with our stadiums and helping them implement stricter maintenance standards,” said Moggio. It is that attention to detail that has paid off, and certainly it has been a tournament where coaches have not complained about pitch quality in the stadia Concacaf have used.
While Concacaf has been delivering its Gold Cup, at the same time FIFA has been playing its Club World Cup, on most days scheduling games in direct competition.
Moggio says that their focus has been purely on executing the Gold Cup but that they did work with FIFA to reduce the overlap in kick-off times between the events.
For the Gold Cup, the Club World Cup has not proved the threat many had feared, perhaps the threat has actually been the other way round, something that FIFA might need to take into account if it continues to be the noisy house guest in this market.
Moggio brushes the us-against-them talk off as a non-issue, and he can afford to do it with the success of this edition. He does make the key point though that “which other country in the world could hope to pull two events of this magnitude at the same time?”
So what next after Sunday’s final?
“Work is ongoing,” said Moggio. “We have 2026 World Cup qualifying to complete; Women’s World Cup Qualifying in the Fall; Central American and Caribbean Cups to deliver; the Women’s Champions Cup in the Fall; the fifth edition of the Nations League in the Fall of 2026; and Gold Cup again in 2027. I have missed quite a few inbetween.”
Concacaf’s ball is rolling and gathering pace.
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1751627060labto1751627060ofdlr1751627060owedi1751627060sni@n1751627060osloh1751627060cin.l1751627060uap1751627060