Could county actually cancel $46 million for World Cup?

Spending taxes on sports is seldom logical – look at the 2009 vote to use $3 billion on a Marlins baseball stadium, with most yet to be paid. We swallowed the line that we had to do it for Miami to be Major League (however you define that).

It’s only later that officials admit they’ve been hoodwinked, as happened with the stadium – or now, as Commissioner Kionne McGhee has asked the county to claw back $46 million that it promised for 2026 World Cup matches here.

Frankly, that’s a gutsy call, if only because he voted for that FIFA World Cup spending and as recently as March called for more sports spending if NASCAR agrees to bring its Championship Weekend to Homestead. But now, faced with a budget crunch that threatens social safety net programs, he says that such vital uses trump the lure of sports subsidies.

We congratulate Mr. McGhee on his priorities but question whether it’s possible to now step back from the commitment to fund the soccer matches here next June 11 to July 19. So far, it’s merely a wish to reverse a costly decision that was made in the face of warnings that cuts were coming.

As commissioners were committing the final $10.5 million of the $46 million soccer bonanza May 6 by a 9-1 vote, a memo from Chief Administrative Officer Carladenise Edwards warned that “as a result, service adjustments may be inevitable.” That was it, no emotion, no detail. 

Now that Mayor Daniella Levine Cava has unveiled her budget’s broad cuts, it’s a lot more real, and Mr. McGhee has a better picture of what might have to go. It’s not pretty.

“$46 million sits earmarked for FIFA while seniors lose meal deliveries, children go hungry without summer lunches, rape kits gather dust untested, and trauma survivors are turned away from counseling,” he said with as much overstatement as supporters use to tout the beneficial aspects of the World Cup. “This is not fiscal responsibility – it is moral failure,” he said. “Entertainment cannot come before humanity.”

Commissioners for a year noted looming spending cuts, though not of the magnitude that the mayor’s budget reveals. They cited fiscal issues and then spent as though the county had a credit card with no ceiling. Now, reality is setting in.

We can blame easy targets for the $400 million budget shortfall, anywhere from extra funding for new constitutional offices like the sheriff to the end of federal covid aid funds that have been fueling the county since 2020. These aren’t surprises – everyone knew for years they were coming, commissioners discussed both, but government had that spending credit card. It just put the World Cup on the card, and now it’s time to pay.

The mayor never backed World Cup aid, but she doesn’t get a vote when the commission spends. Now she must figure out how to pay the bill.

So, whether or not the county claws back a penny, was it ever worth $46 million to fund seven soccer matches here? 

Proponents say those matches are even more precious than a Super Bowl.

County Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz said in 2009 that returns on hosting a World Cup would be up to “three to four times that of the Super Bowl.” That, said sports commission executive director Mike Sophia, was “conservative.” “It’s like having four to six super bowls,” Mr. Sophia added. “It’s like seven Super Bowls,” Miami FIFA Committee Chairman Rodney Barreto told commissioners last year. 

Is that the top bid? Do I hear eight? Who will say nine?

What Super Bowls are worth is similar to the multiple of Super Bowls that a World Cup is worth: whoever you ask next has a higher number. Figures derive from studies by firms hired by sports proponents and are probably multiples of reality.

Last year, when other commissioners asked what the county stands to actually gain from hosting World Cup matches, Oliver Gilbert III, whose district encompasses the stadium where the matches will be played, had the good sense not to play the numbers game.

“I like to break it down a different way,” he said. “Every hotel room in Miami Beach and Miami will be filled. Every Coral Gables hotel room will be filled. All the hotels and motels will be filled. Every restaurant will be packed. Everyone will be in an Uber. Everyone will be spending money in our shops.”

If we could compute how much that would be above normal hotel occupancy and Uber use and restaurant billings and the added profits seven days a year for the matches, you can bet that won’t come near $46 million. Mr. Gilbert didn’t claim that it would.

“It’s about positioning Miami as a global sports and entertainment capital,” former University of Miami President Donna Shalala and Miami World Cup Host Committee member Carlos Rionda wrote in a Miami Today Viewpoint article in May.

It may position us, but hardly as a capital. The 104 World Cup matches will be in 16 cities, and we will host only seven of them for our $46 million plus $100 million from private enterprise.

Who spends that money, and how? The county isn’t told, Commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins said a year ago in seeking an “itemization of where and how the money would be spent.”

But we must honor the $46 million commitment, the Viewpoint article says.

Do we have the way out that Mr. McGhee seeks? How practical would it be to just not pay any money that the county hasn’t already turned over for the World Cup? Do we have any legal obligations?

Of course it wouldn’t look good to renege on a promise, but could we if we wanted to? If Mr. McGhee raises that issue when the county sets its budget in September, will he have the facts?

It will be too late then to ask about the status of our World Cup pledges. The mayor should proactively and publicly background all commissioners before they meet, including an accounting of how much of the $46 million has already left county coffers, how much has been spent, and how feasible it would be legally to claw back funds already in FIFA hands or turn off the spigot for future funds before they go down the drain.

Those facts would allow Mr. McGhee and any other courageous commissioners to debate what they should actually do other than wring their hands over lost money that is vital for other uses.

A decision should be based not on whether commissioners love the World Cup or soccer or sports (we all do) but on what is best for the citizens of Miami-Dade County at a tricky financial juncture. Give commissioners all the facts to let them be the referees. 

I’m glad I won’t have to make that difficult call.