Overview
- The host committee and FIFA listed roughly five square yards of the MetLife Stadium final pitch for sale this weekend as individually numbered souvenir cubes priced from $450 to $3,000 and advertised potential sales of about $11 million.
- New Jersey officials say the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority spent about $13 million to install the natural grass and have asked for a share of any revenue from the turf sales.
- FIFA and the New York New Jersey Host City Committee say the program is led by the host committee, that FIFA will take a nominal royalty of less than 5 percent, and that most proceeds will go to local host programs though no detailed split has been published.
- Republican state lawmakers have publicly urged executive and legal remedies and called for a restraining order, but no court action or formal revenue-sharing agreement has been reported so far.
- The dispute highlights a longer trend in which FIFA has centralized major revenues while hosts bear upgrade costs, and it could prompt further state scrutiny of tournament finance, ticketing and licensing practices.