Scotland supporters are sweating after a huge row broke out in the USA on whether Boston will host their first two games
Scotland fans face an expensive summer
Scotland fans have been hit with another costly hammer blow for the World Cup….FIFA will charge them £110 for parking ahead of the opening game in Boston after available spaces were slashed by 75 per cent.
Scotland supporters are sweating after a huge row broke out in the USA on whether Boston will host Steve Clarke’s side’s opening two games against Haiti and Morocco. The tiny town of Foxborough have been outraged over a shortfall of £5.5 million for security funding and the deadline for a deal is now just nine days away or else they won’t grant an entertainment licence for the seven games they host at the Gillette Stadium.
But now there is another financial headache for the tens of thousands of Scotland fans heading over to the States for the three games, after they were already hit with ticket prices of up to £372 for the official SFA allocation for the opening game against Haiti and over £500 for the showdown with Brazil in Miami.
FIFA have erected a security permiter around the 65,000-capacity stadium for all the games, but that means parking has been reduced to the usual 20,000 spaces for New England Patriots games to just 5,000 for the World Cup games.
And FIFA are currently charging $150 for each space (£110) and a staggering $600 (£447) for ‘oversized vehicles’, with many Scotland fans planning to hire cars and motorhomes during their visit to cut down on exorbitant hotel costs
A meeting between stadium organisers and the state’s Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority this week revealed parking availability had been slashed.
And they now have the headache of how to transport Tartan Army fans to the 18,000-population town of Foxborough, around 20 miles outside Boston.
The FIFA World Cup 2026 logo on display at the Boston Stadium(Image: Danielle Parhizkaran/The Boston Globe via Getty Images))
A MBTA statement said: “The number of available parking spots for the general public near the stadium will plunge from the typical 20,000 for a major event to 5,000 to establish a security perimeter around the stadium This will of course, place an extra burden on the state’s public transit system, which will have to meet the travel demands of tens of thousands of spectators.
“We expect to move at least 20,000 fans between South Station in Boston and Foxborough Station on the seven match days.”
Fans must buy parking spots on FIFA’s website and also need a pricey match ticket to complete the deal.
A FIFA spokesman said: “We decided the size of the security perimeter and parking inventory along with the stadium owners. We are also providing on-site parking for teams, media, broadcasters, commercial partners, and official hospitality guests.”