“Tickets were sold out very quickly and we expected more than 70,000 fans to be in the stadium. Of course, that’s because Messi is here. I petitioned FIFA, see if I can “Can I put 15 players on the field?” coach Peter Vermes of Sporting Kansas City Club said jokingly during the press conference before the match with Inter Miami.
According to the American press, attending the match was also the presence of the golden couple of the American sports and entertainment industry, which is singer Taylor Swift and player Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs team in the NFL (style football). America).
Previously, Sporting Kansas City Club’s matches in the MLS tournament often used Children’s Mercy Park stadium with a capacity of only 18,467 spectators. However, the meeting with Inter Miami and the attraction from famous player Messi were too great, exceeding the capacity of Children’s Mercy Park. Therefore, this club decided just a few days before the match to move to Arrowhead Stadium, where the American football team in the same city, Kansas City Chiefs, often uses to compete, to host the match to welcome Messi and his teammates.
This decision immediately received support from fans, with all of Arrowhead Stadium’s capacity of 76,416 tickets sold out in just 15 minutes of opening on April 13. This number of viewers also broke the old record of 52,424 spectators when Sporting Kansas City met MU Club in a friendly match in 2010.
This is also the first time Sporting Kansas City has welcomed such a large and record audience at a football match, compared to the American football team Kansas City Chiefs, which often uses Arrowhead Stadium, with an average audience of about 50,000. People.
According to the online ticket sales site Ticketmaster , the starting ticket price for the match is 80 USD (about 2 million VND) and some tickets exceed 500 USD (more than 12.5 million VND). Because match tickets were sold out, fans could only buy them on the Ticketmaster website with a number of tickets still available but at a higher price than the average of 112 USD (2.8 million VND).
Messi and Inter Miami were eliminated in the quarterfinals of the CONCACAF Champions Cup, so the main goal now is to focus on the MLS tournament to win the championship. In the MLS tournament, after 8 matches, Inter Miami is ranked 3rd on the Eastern region rankings with 12 points after 3 wins, 3 draws and 2 losses. While Sporting Kansas City just drew with Portland Timbers 3-3. , is ranked 7th on the MLS Western region rankings with 2 wins, 4 draws and 1 loss.
