Foxborough threatens to cancel World Cup games amid funding dispute

Officials from the Boston suburb of Foxborough said this week that they could cancel World Cup matches at Gillette Stadium if they do not receive assurances that the town will not be on the hook for security costs, arguing that the burden cannot be on local taxpayers to foot the bill.

Security costs in Foxborough, which will host seven games in the summer, come out to $7.8 million, with town officials unsure where exactly it will come from. There was a presumption at one point that the Kraft Group, which owns Gillette Stadium, would cover the costs but they will not do so because they are essentially renting out the venue to FIFA for the World Cup, according to the Boston Business Journal. Michael Loynd, the president of Boston’s World Cup host city committee, said his organization is “contractually obligated” to handle public safety costs, something all 11 U.S. host cities will receive help with. The U.S. host cities will jointly receive $625 million in federal funding for security bills, though Foxborough officials said a the timeline associated with receiving a federal grant is unhelpful.

“Our issue quite honestly is grants don’t really work for us in the sense of timing,” Bill Yukna, a member of Foxborough’s select board, told the Boston Globe last week. “We obviously would have to pay all the officers and any of the [new capital] purchases before the grant would reimburse us.”

On Tuesday, though, Foxborough officials said they would withhold an essential entertainment license if they do not receive an answer on the funding question, which they expected to be resolved on January 30. The deadline for the license is March 17, leaving the relevant parties just a handful of weeks to resolve the dispute.

The town has yet to order major security equipment needed during the World Cup and is waiting for a reimbursement before doing so, according to CBS News.

“The money has to be here,” Yukna said on Tuesday. “Everyone thinks we have a football stadium in this town. But with that being said we’re a small town. We have 18,000 people … It comes down to sounding like Foxboro is being the bad guys here, but we really aren’t. All we’re trying to do is protect our citizens.”

Despite the conflict, Massachusetts governor Maura Healey believes the issue will be resolved in a timel manner.

“There’s going to be a lot of burden on local folks,” she told reporters on Wednesday. “We just gotta make sure that expenses are taken care of because cities and towns are already burdened enough … This is going to go forward. It’s gonna be great.”

Gillette Stadium will host five group stage matches, including a matchup between England and Ghana on June 23 and a fixture between Norway and France three days later, as well as a round of 32 match on June 29 and a quarterfinal match on July 9.