By Paul Nicholson
July 29 – CONCACAF president Jeffrey Webb hailed the Gold Cup, which closed last night with 1-0 win for the USA over Panama, “a huge success, this has been a great Gold Cup”.
“Our TV ratings have been tremendous, particularly in the US with Univision where we have had between four and five million watching games. We have also seen a lot of activation by our sponsors.” Santander activated its sponsorship across the region with other sponsors took the opportunity to run promotions on game days in the fan zones, and across the US in particular.
“Enrique Sanz (CONCACAF general secretary) and his team have done a tremendous job this Gold Cup. We wanted the players and teams to have a great experience at the Gold Cup and we wanted a lot of engagement with fans,” said Webb.
The fan engagement around the matches included tail-gating and fan villages, to a world record Mariachi (Mexican bands and singers) serenade at the opening match at the Rose Bowl. The Interactive Gold Cup, with qualifiers played in Playstation3 consoles on-line, had the final played live between the semi-final matches in Texas with the gamers on the pitch and the match relayed on to the stadium big screen.
The importance of the Gold Cup financially cannot be under-emphasised. “The Gold Cup makes a big difference to our finances. It allows us to run all of our other competitions,” said Webb.
In terms of ticking boxes for a confederation that a year ago was embroiled in the corruption scandals of cash for votes and various allegations of missing or mis-appropriated funds, the Gold Cup has pretty much ticked all the right ones and pulled the confederation out of a dark place.
It has been a positive and cleansing experience all-round. While there is doubtless still work to be done, and some confederation ‘healing’ to be done, the first steps have probably worked out better than anyone could have imagined.
Before the start of the tournament Webb said he couldn’t wait for the matches to begin “and for us as a confederation to get back to playing football”, referring to the various scandals and ultimate confederation reorganisation that he initiated. At the end he will be relieved it all went so well.
The Gold Cup tournament visited 13 US cities in 21 days with its 25 game format, kicking off at the Pasadena Rose Bowl in Los Angeles on July 7. Each city hosted double-header matches, with Chicago hosting the final.
The format has proved successful, especially when questions are being asked thoughout football about the validity of hosting major tournaments in a single country following UEFA’s decision to split the Euros in 2020 between a number of host nations, and the public unrest that raised questions in Brazil during the Confederations Cup in June. The Gold Cup is a reminder that one-country hosting can work for all parties.
First held in 1991, the Gold Cup takes place every two years. It has only ever been played in the US. “We have always used he US,” said Webb. “We are a confederation of 41 members and I cannot say the other federations will never have a chance to host. But the infrastructure in the US is the best in the world so it is hard [to go elsewhere]. We are open for other members to host. We would have to look at how we an be creative.”
Interestingly, the MLS was running its domestic league schedule in parallel to the Gold Cup – usually the main leagues in a country are suspended while a major tournament takes place. “We had a clash on the opening game with an MLS game in the same city…In future we want to make sure there aren’t any competing fixtures in the same city for fans,” said Webb.
In the US, CONCACAF works with US Soccer and its commercial agency Soccer United Marketing who Webb is quick to say have done a “good job”.
The US win was the fifth time the country had won the tournament. Mexico has won six times. With the title comes a half ticket to the Confederations Cup in 2017 in Russia. The US will play the winner of the 2015 Gold Cup for the qualification spot – though will go through automatically if they win that tournament also.
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