Wednesday morning was an exciting one for the City Beautiful, specifically at Inter&Co Stadium.
Just as the sun was rising, the FIFA Club World Cup trophy made its debut at the home of Orlando City SC and Orlando Pride, which will be one of two venues in Orlando to host matches in the upcoming tournament this June.
The soccer-specific stadium will host four teams across two matches: South Africa's Mamelodi Sundowns F.C. vs. South Korea's Ulsan HD FC and Portugal's SL Benfica vs. Australia's Auckland City FC. The neighbors to the south, Camping World Stadium, will host three matches, including a Round of 16 match later in the month. It's worth noting that the City of Orlando will be the only host city with two separate venues for the upcoming tournament.
From the perspective of Inter&Co Stadium, bringing in a top-tier tournament like the Club World Cup to help showcase the stadium on the world's stage is an opportunity of a lifetime. Orlando City's Chief Operating Officer and General Council, Cesar Lopez, said on Wednesday, "We have a soccer-specific stadium downtown, wonderful environment, unbelievable passion from our fans, and we're giving them good soccer product. We really want to make sure that ours is a venue that is exposed to the world stage. The excitement that we have with this entire group, and the community is coming together, it's an unbelievable opportunity to show why we're still the number one city in America for sports."
The biggest part of the undertaking for both venues is involving nearly every sports and tourism entity in Orlando to work hand in hand to help this massive project come to fruition.
Leadership from all surrounding counties, Orlando City and Pride, Florida Citrus Sports, Visit Orlando, Central Florida Hotel and Lodging and so many other individuals helped collaborate on this project. Something that President & CEO of the Greater Orlando Sports Commission Jason Segal made sure to mention on Wednesday.
"None of this happens if we don't have a collaborative community," he said, "It doesn't happen if we don't have great venue partners, and of course, it goes without saying, all of this is on the shoulders Orlando City, Orlando Pride, the Wilf family, their investment into Inter&Co Stadium. So, we're really proud of everything that's transpired over these, you know, past 30, 40 years, which have prepared us for moments like these."
While the fanfare on Wednesday surrounded the tournament itself, it also brought the President of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, into town to enhance the scale of the day. He spent his morning touring both Inter&Co Stadium and Camping World Stadium, getting a scope of what the City Beautiful would be offering, not just for this summer but potentially further down the line.
The morning culminated in a press conference with Infantino, Segal, and Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, who all spoke about the upcoming tournament to local dignitaries and partners. The FIFA President talked about the importance of the tournament and the history of soccer in Orlando and finished up by announcing that FIFA would be contributing $1 million to the City to help invest in soccer activities in and around town.
"Orlando has become really a soccer city in the last few years, both on the men's side as well as on the women's side," Infantino said. "A lot of progress has been made with a soccer-specific stadium being built for the soccer teams. A community has been built. Orlando is a big international, multicultural community. So, for us, it was important. [Orlando is] a city that welcomes the world, anyway, [throughout] the whole year, with over 75 million tourists. And now, we bring the world here with the FIFA Club World Cup."
