FIFA permit delays for watch parties deepen World Cup woes in Massachusetts – The Boston Globe

“To say we’re frustrated is an understatement,” said Sandhya Iyer, director of economic development and tourism for Lexington, which had hoped to host World Cup fan parties on the lawn of the town’s visitors center but is still waiting on a permit from FIFA.

Iyer is so frustrated by the delay that she recently placed a handmade sign on the site that says, “Give Us a License to Celebrate Soccer.”

“There are times I wish . . . this was all over,” she said.

As one of 16 host communities, Boston is scheduled to stage seven games at Gillette, with the first one scheduled for June 13.

Massachusetts officials on Thursday said FIFA has granted public viewing licenses to only four of the 17 organizations that have received state money for local watch parties and related festivities.

As a result, thousands of soccer fans who were not planning to see the games in person — including members of Chelsea’s large Hispanic community and Cape Verdean communities in Brockton — could miss out on the opportunity to cheer on their national teams in a shared communal celebration.

FIFA has not responded to multiple requests over the past two weeks from the Globe for comment on its licensing process.

Meanwhile, in a new finding from the lodging industry, 70 percent of surveyed hotels in Boston reported bookings for the World Cup were below projections. Many hoteliers describe the tournament as a “non-event,” citing weak international demand. (Meet Boston, the city’s private sector marketing and tourism arm, separately said hotel bookings for June and July are still higher than a year earlier.)

Ticket sales for trains to Gillette, which planners had expected to deliver as many as 20,000 fans to each game — are at roughly one-third capacity. T officials said they expected that pace of sales; they point to the friendly soccer match between Brazil and France in March, seen as a test run for the World Cup games, where many train tickets were sold at the last minute. They believe a similar pattern will unfold once the games begin here.

Another headache surfaced this week: a clash between Mayor Michelle Wu’s administration and state transportation officials over crowd-control plans outside South Station. State officials want to close part of a nearby street during the tournament. The city says no. The state says it plans to proceed anyway. Lengthy meetings this week between the two sides have so far failed to produce a resolution.

Meanwhile, the licensing delays have sparked a new round of finger-pointing over World Cup preparations, with local officials and business leaders blaming FIFA for dragging its feet on the required permits and other organizers accusing the Healey administration of raising expectations prematurely by awarding millions of dollars in grants for events that may never come to fruition.

The watch parties were supposed to expand the Cup celebration around the state and provide an alternative for those who can’t afford the high-priced ticketed events at Gillette.

“We can do a celebration but if you can’t show the game, then who’s gonna come?” said Nelson Fernandes, deputy chief of staff to Brockton Mayor Moises Rodrigues. “It’s pointless.”

Brockton had anticipated up to 6,000 fans packing Campanelli Stadium for the June 15 game between Spain and Cape Verde, the small island nation off the coast of West Africa that is competing in the World Cup for the first time. Nearly one-fifth of Brockton residents are of Cape Verdean descent, and the city was also planning a second watch party in the stadium for the June 13 match between Haiti and Scotland.

“We saw this as a monumental opportunity for our community,” said Fernandes.

Burlington, meanwhile, has already thrown in the towel, abandoning plans for a large watch party on the town common, in part because of the licensing delay from FIFA. Instead it will stage smaller events, including game viewings at a local bar and restaurant, as well as a youth soccer clinic and educational program at the local library..

“It’s all so `unfun,’ ” said Melisa Tintocalis, Burlington’s director of economic development, of the licensing bottleneck. “It’s hard to understand exactly why there are these delays, given that it benefits FIFA to have more eyes and more exposure.”

To support the community events, the state this spring awarded $10 million in grants to 17 organizations that were planning World Cup-related celebrations in 25 communities across the state, from the North Shore to the foothills of the Berkshires.

“By investing in community celebrations across Massachusetts, we’re making sure this global event delivers for people in every region,” Governor Maura Healey said in March.

But that vision clashed with an unexpected obstacle: FIFA’s requirement that organizers secure public viewing licenses before airing any of the events. Without those approvals, soccer’s governing body says, municipalities cannot legally show the matches in public. Many town and city officials believed it would be a simple matter of getting permission, not months of waiting until the timing approaches what many say is a red-zone for their planning.

So far, the only entities to receive licenses are the cities of Boston, Cambridge, and Salem, and the MetroWest Tourism and Visitors Bureau, which is organizing events in Franklin and Marlborough, state officials said.

Most local planners say they have been unable to get clear answers from FIFA, and are instead repeatedly directed back to its online licensing portal.

In some cases, FIFA has messaged local planners for information about their commercial sponsors, to ensure they don’t violate exclusive deals that FIFA has already signed with large corporations, municipal officials said. The pool of such sponsors was already small because FIFA prohibits deals with competitors of its existing sponsors. For instance, a town World Cup watch party can’t be sponsored by a local brewery, because FIFA already has an exclusive deal with Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s biggest brewer.

Now, cities are facing a series of thorny decisions. Do they scale back and hold smaller watch parties in restaurants and pubs, where licenses aren’t required? Do they move forward with contracts for security, food trucks, and jumbo screens without knowing whether they’ll be allowed to show the games? Or do they scrap the events altogether and return the state money?

Kate Fox, executive director of the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism, said local officials are doing all they can to support municipalities, but noted the process is administered independently by FIFA and its North American broadcasters, Fox and Telemundo.

The local host committee for the games in Foxborough, Boston Soccer 26, did not respond to a request for an update on the licensing hold-ups. Last week, its chief executive, Mike Loynd, said the group expected answers on the licensing issue from FIFA “by the end of (last) week.”

That host committee has had its own struggles as well, that include organizational issues, fund-raising shortcomings, and a messy public spat with Foxborough over funding security around the stadium.

Chris Serres can be reached at chris.serres@globe.com. Follow him @ChrisSerres. Michael Silverman can be reached at michael.silverman@globe.com.