We are now about a month away from the World Cup descending on the Meadowlands, which will host eight matches between June 12th and July 19th. The World Cup is the most-watched sporting event on the planet, and with several million soccer fans set to descend upon the United States- while, coincidentally, the nation celebrates its 250th birthday- the White House has entrusted the son of “America’s Mayor” to lead the group that will make the logistics of such a huge event run smoother. Andrew Giuliani is the executive director for the White House Task Force on the FIFA World Cup 2026; he appeared on 710 WOR’s Curtis Sliwa and Larry Mendte in the Morning program to promote why this is America’s chance to shine on the “World” stage… and, perhaps more importantly, even try to convince Curtis to lighten up and enjoy a soccer game for the first time in his life.
Giuliani tried to convince Curtis several times to look beyond the soccer and appreciate that the World Cup is a rare opportunity for America to show the world why the United States is the best place to be in the world: “This is the largest sporting event, really in American history, that’s coming to us. The perspective that I like to give Curtis is, about 130 million people watched the last Super Bowl; 1.6 billion watched the last World Cup final. Every four years it is the largest watched sporting event, where you have everybody from all corners of the globe tuning in, looking at the United States of America over our 250th birthday… It really comes form the fact of understanding that there is ni greater platform to be able to show off American exceptionalism that the World Cup.”
Giuliani also offered his take on why train rides to the games will end up costing so much to get to the Meadowlands on NJ Transit: “I think this is the typical New York-New Jersey rivalry, where the governor of New Jersey probably looked and said, hey, New York City I gaining the revenue from people that are staying in New York City. As soon as they get into the Meadowlands, that’s where FIFA is gaining the revenue, and they saw an opportunity to do it, and instead of realizing this should be something that is taken care of by the federal government, as we’ve done, they’ve kind of taken an opportunity and they’ve tried to kind of bump the prices.”
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