FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — In the end, the World Cup bailed out its Boston hosts.
New England had one of the most tumultuous journeys to get to the World Cup of any host region. The host committee struggled with fundraising, a small suburb threatened to not grant a license for the seven matches, and transportation to the stadium has been an expensive headache.
But once the actual soccer kicked off, Boston found itself at the heart of some of the World Cup’s best storylines. The Scottish descent upon the city for the first week of the tournament was one of the feel-good stories of the group stage before the team crashed out. “The best, best few days of my life,” remarked one Scottish fan. And on Monday, Gillette Stadium hosted the first penalty shootout of the tournament, a shocking Paraguay upset over Germany.
Boston’s World Cup troubles were national news this spring when the suburb of Foxborough, where Gillette Stadium sits, refused to give FIFA the entertainment license it needed to host matchesuntil someone guaranteed $7.8 million in public safety costs. After a contentious back-and-forth between the town and host committee, as a Foxborough-imposed March deadline approached, Patriots owner Robert Kraft—who also owns the stadium—swooped in to backstop the payments. (Earlier this month, the situation soured once more as Kraft’s sports company and the Patriots sued the town for “repeatedly misusing its state-granted licensing authority unlawfully to extract funds” from them.)
