When the FIFA World Cup kicks off in North Texas on June 11, thousands of volunteers will be working to ensure it all goes well.

Cecilia Nipp, Angel Chinuntdet, and Phoebe Butler will be three of them as host city ambassadors stationed at the FIFA Fan Festival at Fair Park throughout the matches. All three of them are educators at Ursuline Academy in Dallas.

“The whole point is to make the visitors feel welcome to the city and to our area. I’m just so excited that I was picked to be part of it. And I get to do it all with some of these great ladies that I work with,” Chinuntdet said.

Butler agrees, and as she put it, she’s excited about the ‘hype’.

“I just get more hyped being around hyped people,” Butler said.

The three said the in-person interview was fun, but also a little nerve-racking. They considered it an elevator pitch of sorts, proving to local World Cup organizers they were perfect for the job.

“They asked me a lot about myself. It was like a job interview. It was funny, at one point, they even asked me what I would say to someone at the Fan Fest if they asked me where to go eat or what the fun things were to do around town. I, of course, told them about some good barbecue spots. I’m also a huge Argentina fan, so I had to tell them about that, seeing as though they are also coming here [for group stage play],” Butler said.

While Chinuntdet and Butler are getting the opportunity for the first time, this isn’t Nipp’s first rodeo. She was a volunteer at the 1994 World Cup when it was at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.

“When I found out I had been selected again, I wanted to run up and down the hallways,” Nipp said. “I was just trying not to scream. But yes, I was just so happy.”

She said it’s not just exciting for her, but also for the students at Ursuline, because many of them have a close relationship with the country of Jordan.

“Here at Ursuline, we have a sister school in Jordan. Jordan is coming [in group play], so that’s exciting because we have friends in that country, and so we’re happy for them,” Nipp said.

In addition to the FIFA Fan Festival, other volunteer roles include: Host City Ambassador, Media Operations, Fan Operations, Hospitality, Competition Management, Access Management, Ceremonies, and airport duties.

33,000 people applied before registration closed in September 2025. Then, nearly 12,000 showed up for the tryouts (in-person interviews). From those, a little more than 5,000 official volunteers were sent official offers. The Dallas market has the second-largest number of volunteers of the 16 host cities, only behind New York/New Jersey.

The majority of the volunteers are local, like Nipp, Chinuntdet, and Butler, but according to local World Cup leaders in Dallas, there were some volunteers who were chosen from across the nation and the world.

“We held 91 in-person, role-specific trainings in March with all volunteers,” Dallas FIFA World Cup 2026 Director of Communications Joe Trahan said. “Each person had to attend at least one of those sessions. Each volunteer also went through e-learning training session modules that included subjects about human rights, sustainability, safety, security and how to manage stressful situations.”

Each volunteer has also had the opportunity to attend venue-specific trainings for their assigned roles.

“Each volunteer is required to work a minimum of eight shifts. Generally, the length of shifts is between four and six hours each,” Trahan said.

Dallas Stadium in Arlington will host nine matches featuring the Netherlands, Japan, England, Croatia, Argentina, Austria, and Jordan in group stage play.Dallas Stadium will also host a semi-final match.

Plano City Council approved the city’s sixth tax increment reinvestment zone, or TIRZ, to allocate funds for the team’s arena to be constructed at Willow Bend Mall at a City Council meeting June 8.

In a nutshell

Local governments use a TIRZ to finance projects that will provide economic benefits to the area, per city documents.

Sales and property tax growth from 896.94 acres along the Dallas North Tollway will be used to fund the city’s portion of construction for the Stars arena, Plano Director of Special Projects Peter Braster said.

Construction for the arena is estimated to cost $1 billion or more, according to city documents. The city will use $700 million from the newly implemented TIRZ 6 to cover some of the construction costs. Dallas Sports & Entertainment LP, the parent company of the Stars, will cover the rest of the construction costs.

The zone is expected to generate more than $1.3 billion in new property tax revenue and roughly $245 million in sales tax revenue within the 41 years it will be in effect, per city documents.

Dig deeper

Braster said the TIRZ separates taxes from the area into two categories: revenue from its base value and revenue from its growth since the TIRZ was established.

“This tool does not impact the current property tax rate for our residents,” Braster said.

Braster said taxes based on the base value of properties in the zone will continue to go toward the city’s general fund. He said the base value is based on the amount of tax revenue collected in 2026, with any additional revenue collected in future years due to increased property value being reinvested into projects within the TIRZ.

New revenue in the area will be set aside for the next 41 years, Braster said. The designated TIRZ 6 will expire at the end of 2067 and is currently 100% nonresidential, he said.

Braster said the city has four other zones currently active in the city, including in Downtown Plano, along the DART Silver Line, at the Collin Creek redevelopment and the Legacy business area.

Something else

Plano residents may also have the opportunity to vote on additional taxes applied to “visitors and activities related to the venue” in November, Assistant City Manager Doug McDonald told council on June 8.

Taxes that could be implemented on visitors include the following:

• Minimum 5% rate on short-term motor vehicle rental
• Maximum 2% hotel occupancy tax
• Maximum $3 per vehicle on venue event parking
• Maximum 10% rate on venue admissions
• Maximum $5,000 per game for each member of a major league team that plays in the venue

Council will have until Aug. 17 to call an election, and the proposed taxes would appear on the Nov. 3 ballot.

Next steps

City Council has been designated as the board of directors for TIRZ 6. Braster said they will develop a final project and finance plan to adopt at a future council meeting.

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The Texas Department of Public Safety has notified the North Texas Tollway Authority that it will not renew an agreement dedicating state troopers to patrol NTTA roadways after the deal expires at the end of August.

NTTA oversees more than 150 miles of roads, bridges, and tunnels across North Texas, including the Dallas North Tollway, President George Bush Turnpike and Sam Rayburn Tollway.

DPS Col. Freeman Martin told NTTA CEO James Hofmann in a June 1 letter that a “comprehensive assessment of our statewide operational requirements” led the agency to forgo renewal. Martin wrote that DPS must preserve the flexibility to deploy personnel and resources in response to an “ever-changing threat environment.”

“The structure of the current agreement limits that flexibility in ways not aligned with DPS’s statewide operational needs,” Martin said in the letter reviewed by The Dallas Morning News.

Read more from our media partners, The Dallas Morning News.