PA: Public transit was ‘an essential part’ of Philly’s winning World Cup bid. Will it be there for next year’s games?

Meg Kane, the host city executive of Philadelphia’s World Cup organizing committee, joined her counterparts from the other 10 U.S. host cities on Monday for a media event about the tournament’s logistics.

It was the kind of stuff that isn’t always entertaining, but is certainly always important, especially when it comes to transportation and security. And on those subjects, just as all politics is local, so is all World Cup preparation.

FIFA has its rules, for sure, as does the federal government. But the local organizing groups are responsible for a lot of the execution, and a lot of the lobbying for public funding in areas where it’s needed.

In Philadelphia, that’s especially true with Southeastern Pennsylvania Public Transportation Authority's(SEPTA) funding crisis. Kane did not hold back in saying how important public transit will be to the city’s role.

“Philadelphia Soccer 2026 has long supported SEPTA and its need for funding,” she said. “SEPTA is an essential partner to us, and it was an essential part of our winning this bid. Very few cities offer the level of infrastructure, specifically the Broad Street Line, that SEPTA offers. We want to see that maximized, and we want to make sure that we’re doing our absolute best to move people efficiently.”

For all of SEPTA’s critics, from Harrisburg legislators to everyday riders, FIFA quite likes the transportation agency. And fans who come from abroad will likely feel the same, because they’re used to taking public transit to games while many Americans are not. Just four of the 11 U.S. World Cup stadiums are within walking distance of a city subway or light rail network, with three others near commuter rail.

“We want tourists to have an amazing time, but we want residents to feel part of this party,” Kane said. “SEPTA is the residents’ mass transit, it’s the city’s mass transit. … I have confidence that the state legislature, the governor, the city will come together with SEPTA to find a solution. We certainly support those efforts, and we will stand by and see what the next few months bring.”

Lemon Hill shooting won’t impact fan fest

Kane gave her most extensive remarks yet in reacting to the Memorial Day weekend shooting on Lemon Hill, which will be the site of next year’s World Cup fan fest.

“Obviously it was a tragic event, and one that we all felt incredible sadness about,” she said. “As we contemplate the planning of the fan festival there, it will be a very different feel than what a Memorial Day weekend might be at the park currently. There’s going to be a higher level of security, there’s going to be a hard perimeter.”

The point of that perimeter, Kane said, will be “not to make it feel walled off, but to ensure safety and security for all of the 20-to-25,000 people that will be coming per day” to that part of Fairmount Park.

“The success of the tournament for Philadelphia [and] for all the host cities really does root itself in delivering that safe experience — an experience that allows for soccer and for the celebration of cross-cultural exchange to happen,” she said. “Everything that we’re doing has safety and security at the heart, and that is a commitment that the city of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Police Department, Mayor [ Cherelle] Parker [and] City Council all share with us.”

ICE raids overshadow optimism

It wasn’t lost on anyone that Monday’s event took place at a time when President Donald Trump has sent the National Guard to Los Angeles over protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. Few attendees, whether on stage or in the crowd, could easily square those scenes with the ideal of the world coming to American shores for a party next summer.

The subject came up during a Q&A session with the media as a whole. Although the local committees have no influence over federal visa policy — it remains to be seen whether even FIFA will have any — Kane took it head-on. She wasn’t surprised to be asked, and her answer was clearly prepared.

“We’ve talked about it a great deal,” she said. “For us as host cities, and because of the length of time that we’ve all been part of this, we’ve recognized that our charge as host cities is to be prepared to welcome whoever is in our city, and to make them feel welcome when they are there.”

That “length of time” is in fact pretty long by now. It’s been almost seven years since the U.S., Canada, and Mexico were awarded 2026 hosting rights, and 18 years since the U.S. floated its first bid to host the 2018 tournament. Although not all of the local groups’ leaders have been there the whole time, many of them have at least been around since the 2026 bid process formally started in 2017.

“There are certainly things that are happening at the national level, the international level — there are going to be geopolitical issues that we don’t even know right now that are going to affect the tournament next year,” Kane said. “So we recognize that we’re planning within uncertainty, and one of the things that I think we all recognize is that we have to be really good at operating within that uncertainty.”

She noted that the Trump administration has been “extremely supportive of the FIFA World Cup,” and “we feel that has been communicated to us at the federal level.”

But while Trump himself has spent quite a bit of time with FIFA president Gianni Infantino, everyone knows the biggest step is yet to come. The administration has said nothing about visas for fans who want to come here next summer, and wait times for regular visas from some countries are already well over a year.

Kane deferred to FIFA on the subject as politely as she could.

“We work through that with our state and local municipalities, but I think we all share confidence in the fact that we’re going to prepare our cities the best that we can,” she said. “We allow for FIFA to continue having constructive conversations with the administration around visas, around workforce, around tourism. And we’ll be prepared for whatever comes our way to make this a great tournament, because that’s what the charge of the host cities is.”

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