The final of the Copa América, the world’s oldest soccer tournament, on Sunday night was marred by criminal chaos as mobs of thousands of people stormed the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Florida, overwhelming security and barreling into the venue without tickets.
The Copa América, a continental tournament featuring North and South American soccer teams, concluded on Sunday with a match between World Cup champions Argentina and the Colombian national team. The massive security failure in Miami was preceded by similar violence in Charlotte, North Carolina, earlier in the week, when Colombian fans reportedly attempted to attack the families of the Uruguayan national soccer team, which resulted in players jumping the stands and physically assaulting fans.
Argentina won the cup 1-0 in a sleepy match extended into extra time due to lack of scoring.
The harrowing scenes of fans crushed by mobs, people in Colombian jerseys attempting to enter the match through the stadium ventilation system, and a man who claimed a woman bludgeoned him with a gun and entered the stadium with seemingly no security oversight have raised concerns for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which the United States is also set to host.
The Argentine news network TN reported on Sunday night that thousands of people appeared to surround the Hard Rock Stadium long before the match began, many of them without tickets, and simply used their bodies to push down barricades and trample security officers. The match began almost two hours later than scheduled in an attempt to process those who purchased tickets, but security ultimately gave up checking tickets and stood idly by as crowds stormed in. Some isolated incidents of security officers using tasers to control unruly soccer fans occurred, but other than that did little to interrupt the unrestricted flow of people into the venue.
At the ticket service desk, what appeared to be hundreds of people attempted to push through barricades, injuring an unknown number and endangering the lives of those in the front. Footage of the event from the Mexican network TV Azteca showed multiple small children in tears, screaming as parents lifted them over the crowd to security personnel. One woman in an Argentine jersey appeared to be frantically looking for her child on the other side of the barricade before it collapsed.
In another incident, a group of people wearing Colombian jerseys appeared to be climbing into a ventilation pipe to sneak into the event, seemingly uninterrupted by any stadium staff.
A ticketed fan who identified himself as a Salvadoran fan of the Argentine team told TN that Colombian fans assaulted him in an apparent attempt to steal his jersey and sneak into the stadium without tickets.
“Some Colombian fans, wearing the Colombian jersey, they wanted to hit me,” he narrated, describing a woman as taking out a “firearm.”
“Yes, a firearm,” he narrated, “so I stayed like that and I just felt the impact of getting hit by the firearm, then they went running and thankfully the ambulance workers tended to me.”
“Where is the security? The woman is in there,” he added, pointing to the doors of the stadium. The armed woman apparently made it into the stadium; her identity is unknown at press time and authorities have not confirmed the man’s testimony.
TN reported that, at one point, rather than address the mob, security began attacking journalists. The network caught security officers attempting to expel their journalists from the venue.
The crowds pushing through security appeared to be overwhelmingly Colombian, outraging Argentine fans. One fan lamented that security in the United States appeared dramatically inferior to that in Qatar, the repressive Islamist state that hosted the 2022 World Cup.
“I went to seven matches in Qatar, I never saw anything like this,” the man claimed.
The South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) is in charge of the tournament and, presumably, event planning and security. The federation issued a brief statement on Sunday night, incorrectly stating that “people who do not have tickets will not be able to enter the stadium” and confirming a delay in the match. At press time, CONMEBOL has offered no meaningful statements on the security failure or recourse for anyone who paid for tickets – many of them worth thousands of dollars – and could not enter the stadium.
Yahoo Sports condemned CONMEBOL for failing to provide “obvious” security protocol used around the world to prevent unticketed mobs from storming games.
“If you go to a World Cup game or a European final, there are multiple security perimeters, at least two heavily reinforced layers of protection between the outside world and the stadium,” reporter Henry Bushnell noted. “In Argentina, when I went to Copa Libertadores group-stage games last year, there were at least three checkpoints. Fans had to show a ticket several blocks away from La Bombonera or El Monumental. A block later, they had to show identification. They were patted down.”
“In Miami on Sunday, there was none of that,” he observed.
The chaos was anticipated, as Colombian fans had similarly disrupted the semifinal match against Uruguay. Following the end of that match on Wednesday, Uruguayan players jumped into the stands and began attacking Colombian fans. The images circulated online largely without context.
Uruguayan team captain José María Giménez explained in an interview following the match that the altercation occurred because players felt compelled to protect their families because security officers were not acting in the face of belligerent fans.
“Our families are in the stands, there are little newborn babies. It was a disaster,” Giménez explained. “There was not a single police officer, they showed up a half hour later. We had to be there showing up for our people.”
“This happens at every match,” he lamented. “Our families are suffering due to people who take a drink or two of alcohol and don’t know how to drink who behave like children and are not decent.”
Security authorities in Miami assured fans that they were prepared to protect them on Sunday. Days before the final, Miami Dade Detective Argemis Colome appeared on CBS News asserting, “We’re going to be working with local, state, and federal partners and we’re going to have a lot of undercover officers working the game as well … everyone’s safety is our primary concern.”
The World Cup will take place in venues throughout the United States in 2026, culminating at MetLife stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, the most densely populated state in the country. Unlike the Copa América, however, CONMEBOL will not be the party organizing the matches.
That responsibility will fall to the much larger Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA).
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