Children’s Mercy Park will host a 2019 Concacaf Gold Cup doubleheader next summer, Concacaf announced on Wednesday.
The world-class home of Sporting Kansas City is one of 15 venues across 13 U.S. cities that will welcome the 2019 edition of the expanded Concacaf Gold Cup, which will feature a record 16 nations next summer from June 14-July 7. The biennial tournament is the premier international competition of the North, Central American and Caribbean region, helping determine Concacaf’s representative at the 2021 FIFA Confederations Cup.
“The Concacaf Gold Cup is the region’s biggest soccer event, and we are excited to host matches for the 2019 tournament next summer,” Sporting KC President and CEO Jake Reid said. “Children’s Mercy Park has a proud history of welcoming festive crowds for high-profile matches at the club and international level, and we look forward to being a part of the Gold Cup for the third time since 2011.”
In addition to the announced U.S. venues, 2019 Gold Cup matches will also take place in Central America and the Caribbean for the first time in the tournament’s 15 editions. These markets and venues will be announced at a later date.
Fans can visit GoldCup.org to sign up for an exclusive pre-sale offer for any Gold Cup matchday in 2019, before tickets go on sale to the general public. More information about the tournament — including ticket on-sale dates, groups and the full match schedule — will be confirmed in the coming months.
Wednesday’s announcement marks the continuation of Children’s Mercy Park hosting soccer’s biggest matches at the club, college and international levels. Other high-profile competitions held at the stadium include the 2013 MLS Cup, 2013 MLS All-Star Game, 2014 Concacaf Women’s Championship, 2015 Men’s College Cup, Concacaf Men’s Olympic Qualifying (2012, 2015), and two Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup finals (2012, 2017). Additionally, U.S. Soccer today announced that Children’s Mercy Park will host a 2018 Tournament of Nations doubleheader on July 26 featuring the U.S. Women’s National Team.
Among the 13 announced host markets for the 2019 Gold Cup, Kansas City is one of eight selected in the United Bid as a potential host city for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
The U.S. Men’s National Team is one of six teams automatically qualified for the 2019 Gold Cup, joining Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, Panama and Trinidad and Tobago as countries that participated in the 2018 FIFA World Cup Hexagonal. The remaining 10 nations to compete in the 2019 Gold Cup will be determined through qualification matches, to be played on FIFA dates between September 2018 and March 2019.
First contested in 1991, the Gold Cup has been held exclusively in the United States on 11 occasions. The tournament was hosted jointly between the U.S. and Mexico in 1993 and 2003, while Canada was a co-host with the U.S. in 2015. The 2019 competition will feature a record number of U.S. venues, surpassing the previous high of 14 in both 2015 and 2017.
The 2019 Concacaf Gold Cup is sponsored by Allstate Insurance Company, Cerveza Modelo, Nike, Scotiabank and Toyota. The Gold Cup will be televised across the U.S. on the Univision and FOX family of networks, transmitted on radio in Spanish by Fútbol de Primera Radio Network, and broadcast by television partners in countries around the world.
