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LAWRENCE — Earlier this month, FIFA announced the 2026 World Cup match schedule.
This was something that caught the attention of the soccer community around the world as well as the Kansas City area soccer community. During the World Cup, games will be held at Arrowhead Stadium, home of the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs. And in Lawrence, just across the state line shared by Kansas and Missouri, the news represents another step toward realizing the roles Lawrence and Kansas universities can play in hosting the World Cup.
That’s because, if selected, Lawrence and the University of Kansas would operate as base camps for teams competing in the 2026 World Cup. The event will feature matches in Canada, the United States and Mexico. And it wasn’t long after that, according to Jason Booker, KU’s vice president of athletics, that he created a budget to cover the costs of the team using Lawrence and his KU facility as a base camp. has been submitted to FIFA.
“In December 2025, we will be notified if we have been selected by a country to be here and which country it is,” said Booker, KU’s deputy AD for foreign affairs and revenue generation. Told. “So they have to go through the World Cup qualifiers… and they will show, ‘Here are all the options you have to choose from in the host city.’
Booker is playing a key role in the effort to bring a World Cup team to the region. This is because he has a role not only within the university, but also in the larger community within and around it. Mr. Booker is chairman of the Kansas City Sports Commission and Foundation Executive Committee. He serves on the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors.
Booker said the collaboration also includes Explore Lawrence, and the university’s Rock Chalk Park, home of the Jayhawks women’s soccer team, will be one of the facilities used by the team. . Budget submissions include fees such as security costs. And once more details are known, including which teams will participate, it will become clearer which university facilities will be used, Booker said.
Booker described the selection process as a sort of brochure where teams choose from a list of all possible base camps. More information about KU and Lawrence that FIFA learned during this process includes the advantages of Division I university facilities and Lawrence’s infrastructure to accommodate a large number of students, which Booker believes are a number of attractive features. Shows equipment. Demographics etc. And a team that chooses what Lawrence and KU have to offer doesn’t even have to be a team that plays in Kansas City. This is because air options, including using Topeka, provide access to either coast.
Of course, there is no guarantee that what Lawrence and KU can offer will be selected. Booker believed that if there were 48 teams participating in the 2026 World Cup, there would likely be many potential base camps for teams that were not selected. However, they have continued to work with their partners and are confident that their efforts will lead to a positive conclusion.
“We’re still doing our best and trying to build a relationship with FIFA,” Booker said. “But I think we’re in a good position.”
There’s not much for Booker and the team to do until a decision is made. There may be negotiations over costs and early site visits by the team to get a feel for where they want to locate their base camp. But that’s due to both the aspects that remain in the process and all that KU and Lawrence can already offer.
Booker said FIFA representatives had analyzed the field at Loch Chalk Park and found it matched Premier League pitches overseas. Booker explained that FIFA had already come to see Lawrence three times to consider what they could offer, including what hosting media would look like at Loch Chalk Park. There are a lot of boxes that Lawrence and KU already check.
“We’re 98% of the way there,” Booker said of Rock Chalk Park in particular. “There may be some adjustments here and there. There are some security requirements, so it’s still a work in progress while we install the fence, but from a privacy and security standpoint, we’re looking at whether we should cover the fence with plastic wrap or not. , or do we need to do something? There are some little things like that, but from a pure infrastructure standpoint, all the boxes are checked.”
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Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics for the Topeka Capital Journal. He has been named the National Sports Media Association’s 2022 Kansas Sportswriter of the Year. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or @JordanGuskey on Twitter.
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