MIAMI (AP) — Los Angeles FC will host Mexico's América on May 31 in their Club World Cup qualification playoff, FIFA finalized on Friday.
The winner will get group-stage games against Chelsea in Atlanta on June 16, then Esperance from Tunisia in Nashville, and Flamengo of Brazil in Orlando.
The play-in game is needed to complete the 32-team lineup of the tournament that starts on June 14 because another Mexican club, León, was removed. León broke tournament integrity rules being in the same ownership group as another Club World Cup entry, Pachuca.
FIFA announced the date and venue 10 days after León’s appeal against expulsion was lost at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland.
LAFC’s 22,000-seat home BMO Stadium — next to the LA Memorial Coliseum and shared with Angel City — will stage the game at 7:30 p.m. local time.
That is several hours after the Champions League final in Munich between Inter Milan and Paris Saint-Germain. Both have qualified for the Club World Cup.
The Club World Cup entry for LAFC or América is worth an initial $9.55 million payment from FIFA for a CONCACAF region team, plus a share of the $1 billion in total prize money based on results at the month-long tournament. It is being played in 11 U.S. cities.
FIFA planned the LAFC-América game in March after first ruling to expel León, which qualified by winning the 2023 CONCACAF Champions League.
FIFA said LAFC would be in the playoff because it was the beaten finalist against León, while América was the next best ranked team in its Club World Cup confederation ranking.
It was unclear why América — one of Mexico’s best-supported teams — is eligible when FIFA rules cap each country at two entries unless it has more than two winners of a continental championship in the four-year qualifying period through 2024.
Mexico already has Pachuca and Monterrey in the tournament that has been heavily promoted by FIFA President Gianni Infantino with U.S. President Donald Trump.
Trump has said he will attend the July 13 final at Met Life Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey to present the gold trophy. It has spent much of the past few weeks in the Oval Office at the White House.
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The Associated Press
