Having done several sprint triathlons over the years in Key Biscayne, I am well familiar with the challenges of summer sporting events in Miami. Even with a 6 a.m. start time, it felt like racing through a furnace and the air was nearly as wet as the ocean. And beyond the morning, it pours pretty much every afternoon, followed by a weather condition best described as steam. So even evening outdoor sporting events feel like a wet sauna.
That would be one concern for the final match of the Copa America between eventual champion Argentina and Columbia held last Sunday in Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium, the championship of one of the world’s most prestigious soccer tournaments that crowns a champion amongst South, Central, and North American nations. But that ultimately was not the gravest concern for event organizers, which technically was CONMENBOL, the soccer federation that runs the tournament. The biggest problem, as you likely know, was a full-on security breakdown that made the final nearly unplayable – and also nearly deadly.
In short, thousands of fans without tickets rushed the gates – as well as any range of other entry points, including air vents – and stadium security was fully unable to manage the chaos, which could have easily ended in deaths from any number of viable options, from being crushed against gates to heat exhaustion. So, outmanned and lacking strategy, the gates were opened to largely save lives, letting thousands of people – many without tickets – simply run in. It also meant that when order was restored and security gates were put back up, a whole bunch of people who did have tickets – likely costing thousands of dollars – didn’t get in. And inside the stadium, far too many people were grabbing seats they didn’t have, while others were simply out of luck. All that resulted in a delay of an hour and 22 minutes, pushing start time to nearly 9:30 p.m. Or as they say, past my bedtime. It was an unmitigated disaster from a nation that will host the World Cup in only two years. And if you think passions run high at the Copa, just wait until 2026.
There’s a lot of blame game happening. And the good news is, pretty much everyone is right. At the very least CONMENBOL should have had a much sounder strategy in crowd control, including perimeter fencing that extended far outside the stadium gates. It’s hard to say how much Hard Rock Stadium is culpable, but even if it wasn’t their plan, they should know better. And, not to state the obvious, it’s hard not to simply point the finger at fans for unruly behavior. Too often we rationalize criminal activity because it happens in the context of sports. Like sure, there’s fights in the stands, but hey, it was a baseball game. And for the record, there was considerable unrest in the crowd after Columbia’s semifinal win over Uruguay, when players from the Uruguay team went into the stands after the game because they feared for their family’s safety from Columbian fans. Which is all the more reason why event organizers probably should have been a bit more prepared for Sunday’s final. And not for nothing, when thousands of fans enter a stadium without even a cursory screening, you literally have no idea who’s bringing what into a stadium – something you’d imagine people might have been a bit concerned about after the recent Trump rally. So it could have been worse.
There’s a lot to think about here, especially given the upcoming World Cup. And don’t be fooled, two years is basically a weekend when it comes to global event planning. There are also broad sociological and economic questions about fandom and capitalism. For example, why is it that sports fans are willing to risk their own and other’s safety to see a soccer match – one that they could obviously watch on television? How deeply embedded is nationalism and sport into individual self-concept? Why does sport enable such potential to dehumanize others, from stadium workers to opposing fans to people from whom you essentially stole tickets? And does the exorbitant price of entry only enflame these tendencies, turning a soccer match into a populist uprising? These are serious questions that get to the heart of the game and why sport runs so deep in the first place. They are not, however, questions that will be answered before the entire soccer world descends on America in 2026.
Which means that FIFA, and Miami, which hosts several World Cup matches, better get ready. And if possible, turn down the heat.
Keith Strudler is the director of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him at @KeithStrudler
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