Officials representing Foxborough, Mass., said this week that they could cancel the seven World Cup matches scheduled at Gillette Stadium this summer if they do not receive assurances that local taxpayers will not be forced to foot the $7.8 million security bill.
The town is waiting for a reimbursement before ordering major security equipment needed during the World Cup.
As reported by Pardeep Cattry of CBS Sports, citing reporting by the Boston Business Journal, there was a presumption that the Kraft Group, which owns Gillette Stadium, would cover World Cup security costs, but it will not do so because it is essentially renting out the venue to FIFA for the event.
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 the timeline associated with receiving a federal grant is unhelpful, Cattry reported.
"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."
This week, Foxborough officials said they would withhold an essential entertainment license if they do not receive an answer on the funding question, which they had expected to be resolved on Jan. 30. "The deadline for the license is March 17, leaving the relevant parties just a handful of weeks to resolve the dispute," Cattry reported.
"The money has to be here," Yukna said 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."
Per CBS Sports, 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 June 29 and a quarterfinal match July 9.
