Fans face hours-long queues at World Cup final amid tight security

Fans spent hours in security queues at MetLife Stadium on Sunday as Donald Trump attended the World Cup final, turning the match into a stress test for crowd control, transit and stadium operations. The venue, in East Rutherford, New Jersey, is branded by FIFA as New York New Jersey Stadium.

FIFA told ticket holders to arrive three hours before kickoff at New York New Jersey Stadium, and the New Jersey State Police urged supporters to start matchday early for the final. Even with that warning, the extra screening linked to presidential security added to the slow entry into the stadium, where restrictions on what fans could bring also lengthened checks.

The White House confirmed on July 17 that Trump would attend the final. Reuters reported that security around him was expected to tighten ahead of the match, and that pressure was visible around the stadium approach as fans were funneled through slower, more restrictive entry points than they would face at a routine game.

The delays also landed in a broader transit plan already under strain. New York City said it was expecting a significant influx of visitors and fans during the summer World Cup and announced a Midtown transportation plan for each local match day to keep the city moving safely. The New York City Department of Transportation, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, NJ TRANSIT and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey all warned of major disruptions around Midtown Manhattan and match-day travel, including the area around Penn Station.

The New York and New Jersey region is hosting eight World Cup match days in June and July 2026, but the final carried the heaviest security burden. With Trump at the stadium and the world’s largest single-match crowd moving through a complex transit network, the queues showed how quickly the arrival experience could slip beyond FIFA’s own three-hour recommendation.

For many supporters, the final began long before kickoff. The lines outside MetLife Stadium suggested that the security plan, the stadium’s screening rules and the local transportation setup had not fully caught up with the scale of the event.