FIFA President Gianni Infantino warned Tuesday that Los Angeles was about to be flooded with football fans from across the globe as he helped kick off World Cup celebrations at a star-studded event at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
Speaking ahead of this week’s opening matches, Infantino said the city would soon become a focal point of the football world during the expanded 48-team tournament, which gets underway in Mexico City on Thursday before Los Angeles stages its first World Cup match on U.S. soil Friday.
“You will be invaded,” Infantino told the crowd.
“You will be invaded by a horde of barbarians. But it’s happy barbarians, don’t worry.”
The event drew entertainment and sports figures, including actors Will Ferrell and Brendan Hunt, singer Lance Bass, former NBA player Robert Horry, and U.S. football greats Mia Hamm and Cobi Jones.
‘Unite the world’
Infantino said the tournament would turn Los Angeles and other host cities into a sea of national colors as fans of all ages arrive in jerseys, flags and face paint.
“Men, women, children, grandparents, doesn’t matter, they will all have their faces colored with the colors of their countries,” he said.
“They will just want to enjoy and have fun because that’s what we want to do with the World Cup. We want to unite the world.”
The tournament, hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada, is the first to feature 48 national teams. Infantino said a quarter of the world’s countries would be represented on the field, while billions more would follow the tournament globally.
“This is not just a World Cup,” he said. “This will be the biggest and greatest FIFA World Cup in history.”
Los Angeles in the spotlight
Los Angeles is scheduled to host eight matches, along with fan festivals and 10 fan zones across the area. Infantino thanked local organizers for staging the events, saying the city’s role reflected its standing as “the capital of entertainment in the world.”
The United States will open its campaign Friday at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood against Paraguay after an opening ceremony featuring musical performances by Katy Perry, Future and Anitta.
Infantino likened the scale of the tournament to staging “104 Super Bowls” over a little more than a month, referring to the total number of matches across the three host countries.
“For the next month and a half, we can call it football or football, as long as we enjoy and have fun,” he said.
