Sunday, SoFi Stadium was awarded eight games in the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup.
In the months leading up to Sunday’s announcement, reports had SoFi Stadium either being passed over by FIFA or limited in the number of games the stadium would host.
“There was a lot of chatter around the field size, which all of it was unfounded,” Rams chief operating officer Kevin Demoff said Monday. “Nearly every NFL stadium that exists in this tournament is undergoing some kind of renovation for FIFA to accommodate their field size, which is larger than a friendly match that you would host, for Copa America or Gold Cup, which we’ve hosted successfully.
“I think a lot of that was driven by the competition amongst cities to try to knock stadiums down. When you have a stadium as attractive as SoFi Stadium and people competing for events, I think that was driven by other cities, than it was the reality of FIFA.”
SoFi Stadium will host five group stage games, including two for the USMNT. The stadium will also host two games in the Round of 32 and one quarterfinal game.
SoFi’s renovations are underway. Otto Benedict, Senior Vice President of Facility and Campus Operations for SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park, said that construction began Sunday night.
“SoFi Stadium was designed to host a FIFA regulation pitch size, so with our system we have in place now, we will fit a 65 meter (x 105 meter) pitch into our stadium,” he said. “In conversations with FIFA and their needs around auxiliary space for the field, we’re going to expand that and modify our seating system to include a couple more rows in each corner so that we can get to the 73-plus meter distance that FIFA has requested.”
The renovations will create more space to fit the larger field required by FIFA. The first phase, according to the AP, is “replacing concrete in the corners of the lower bowl with bleacher risers that can be rolled back during soccer matches.”
“We’re taking a 90-day sprint for the first phase of construction,” Benedict said. “Then we’ll go back to our normal configuration and go through our concert season and special events this summer and the NFL season.
“Then in ’25, we’ll go back to do some different work there, build out our field for the first time, we’ll have a natural grass field that’s going to be designed to FIFA’s specifics, do some events and testing around that and then we’ll jump into ’26, which will be here before we know it.”
Benedict said there will be an opportunity to add in temporary seating if needed for the World Cup. Also during the tournament, SoFi will adopt the new name “Los Angeles Stadium” due to FIFA’s regulations that prohibit sponsors’ from representing venues.
SoFi Stadium has hosted several soccer events recently, with each drawing more than 70,000.
“It’s been a fun process, it’s been a long process,” said former Galaxy president Chris Klein, who is also co-chair of the L.A. host committee. “Almost seven years to get to this point and we have another 2 1/2 to go. At the outset, we talked about hosting some of the biggest games in the 2026 World Cup and our focus was on the opener for the United States and hosting our men’s national team to open the World Cup.
“We obviously know the final is a big deal as well, but to be able to welcome the world and our country at such an important time for soccer in the United States and to be able to build events around the opening, we’re extremely excited and happy with how things rolled out yesterday (Sunday). The clock starts now to kick off the World Cup in the United States.”
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SoFi will also host games in the Copa America this summer, serving as another test for what things might look like for the World Cup.
“It’s been a long, long, bumpy, twisting, winding road to this point,” said LAFC co-president and L.A. committee co-chair Larry Freedman. “When I think about growing up at what might have been the dawn of global football in the U.S. when the North American Soccer League was around and seeing the game grow and never quite catch on at the highest level and I think about Chris (Klein) and the story he tells playing on various levels of our national teams and seeing this sport grow and grow in this region.
“It started with the L.A. Galaxy and all of their rich and great history and then you get LAFC and now Angel City Football Club on the women’s side and you feel how important the game is in this market and this region and to connect it now with the biggest tournament in all of sports, it’s pretty exciting.”