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The cloud hanging over Boston’s seven World Cup matches isn’t going anywhere.
The city’s World Cup host committee, Robert Kraft’s sports company, and the small town of Foxborough, Mass., exchanged a flurry of letters and statements on Thursday and Friday.
Negotiations between the three—with FIFA still on the sidelines—remain tense, with fewer than two weeks remaining until a deadline to distribute a key license.
The town of Foxborough is withholding the entertainment license FIFA needs to host World Cup matches at Gillette Stadium until it is guaranteed the town won’t foot the bill for $7.8 million worth of security costs. The Select Board that governs the 19,000-person town says it did not agree to host New England’s World Cup matches, and its budget cannot handle security costs for staffing or equipment.
Kraft Sports & Entertainment and the regional World Cup host committee, Boston 26, published several letters this week suggesting that the Krafts were set to cover some costs. The town fired back and accused the organizers and Krafts of misleading the media.
“The Town of Foxborough was shocked and dismayed to read statements to the media made by the Kraft Group and other event organizers that an agreement has been reached with the Town,” the town of Foxborough said in a statement on Friday afternoon. “Any such statement is categorically false.”
Shortly afterward, KSE released yet another statement.
“At no point in this process has the Kraft Group claimed to have reached an agreement with the Town of Foxborough,” the statement said.
“We are deeply disappointed that the town has seemingly reached a conclusion unilaterally without the platform of a public hearing which is already scheduled for March 17 and would like to understand what the town requires at this stage to get to ‘yes.’”
Last month, the town wanted answers about who would pay the costs. At a contentious town meeting on Tuesday, Boston 26 said the money will be sourced from federal grants with KSE as a backstop if the grants continue to be delayed.
Foxborough wants the funding upfront, but the federal security grants are held up amid the Department of Homeland Security shutdown. Foxborough’s Select Board set a deadline of March 17 to have its demands met, or it would not give FIFA the event license it needs to hold the games.
On Thursday evening, KSE distributed three pieces of information to the media: a statement from a Gillette Stadium spokesperson, a letter from Boston 26 to the town, and a letter from KSE to Boston 26.
In the statement, the Gillette Stadium spokesperson said that hosting matches at “our privately funded stadium” would not be “revenue generating events for the stadium, but they do generate a significant amount of tourism and visibility for the state.”
“Throughout this process, Gillette Stadium has met with Town of Foxborough representatives to address Foxborough’s operational concerns and is committed to financially ensuring the Town’s needs are met for security related costs for the World Cup,” the statement reads in part.
The letter from Boston 26 to the town prefaced a draft of the necessary event license, which was not shared. (An official for Foxborough did not respond when asked for this document.) In the letter, organizers said Boston 26 has $2 million in the bank and anticipates “at least” another $30 million from state, federal, and commercial sources. “With the amounts on hand and expected additional funding, BS26 is and will remain well capitalized to pay all amounts as they come due in connection with hosting World Cup Events,” organizers wrote.
The letter made some progress toward addressing the town’s goals from Tuesday’s meeting. Boston 26 said it and FIFA “accept the [equipment] list unconditionally and without exception,” and will get equipment to the town “on or before the date reasonably determined by the Chiefs.” But the document also repeated some language the town had disliked, such as saying the host committee would “borrow or lease” some security equipment, and repeated the group’s position that it would pay the town back for costs within two days.
The third item was the letter from KSE to Boston 26, in which the Kraft Group offered to pay no more than about $1.5 million in “equipment expenditures” in $100,000 increments between now and the end of July. The letter also showed KSE’s openness to covering non-equipment expenses, but it did not explicitly state that the group would cover the $7.8 million the town wants.
Though framed as commitments, none of these topics are agreed upon, something the town has stressed to the media.
“We appreciate that the Kraft Group and BS26 are moving toward addressing the concerns of the Town but, to be clear, we have not reached an agreement with respect to their proposed funding arrangement,” Select Board chair Bill Yukna said in a statement on Thursday. “What they have presented is essentially an agreement with themselves but such terms are not responsive to the town’s requirements and will not suffice to address the Town’s needs for providing security services for these events. … any suggestion that BS26 or the Kraft Group have adequately addressed the Town’s concerns is false.”
Yukna joined with other members of the Select Board and the town manager to release a fiery statement on Friday.
“The Town’s public safety team has spent thousands of hours in conjunction with regional, state and federal partners to develop a comprehensive security plan,” the town’s statement said. “While the total cost for such services is a microscopic fraction of the revenue that the events will generate, the Town has been met, at every turn, with resistance from the Kraft Group and other event organizers.
“That such entities may have miscalculated the cost of hosting the World Cup is not a reason to compromise on event security. The Town cannot and will not finance the Kraft Group’s losses by sacrificing public safety.”
This entire situation could be solved, though, if the federal government just paid the grants to the World Cup host cities, which it failed to do as planned by Jan. 30. Now the DHS shutdown has dragged on for three weeks.
In a statement to Front Office Sports on Friday, a FEMA spokesperson said that grants will be held up as long as DHS is shut down.
“Because of the funding lapse, FEMA’s grants management system is not operational and significant portions of FEMA’s workforce have been furloughed,” the spokesperson said. “Only limited, exempt staff can continue restricted work, and overall grant processing capacity is materially reduced. Delays in appropriations directly affect DHS’s ability to finalize awards and support host jurisdictions. DHS stands ready to resume full operations immediately once Congress restores funding.”
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