By Patricia Mazzei, Tariq Panja and Rachel Nostrant
Throngs of fans rushed past security at the final match of the Copa América soccer tournament, some of them brazenly climbing tall fences. A few appeared to try to enter the Hard Rock Stadium near Miami through a ceiling vent. Children cried as the crowds pushed into metal barriers. Some adults grew faint under the broiling sun.
The highly anticipated matchup between Argentina and Colombia on Sunday was intended to showcase the best of South American soccer — and serve as a dress rehearsal for the United States to co-host the men’s World Cup in 2026. Instead, it turned into mayhem, delaying kickoff for over an hour as the situation outside the stadium doors grew dangerous.
The next day, tournament organizers, stadium officials and local authorities struggled to explain exactly what had gone wrong, offering few details about evident organizational failures, pointing fingers and mostly blaming fans who did not have tickets for the match for showing up anyway and becoming “unruly.” Law enforcement officials arrested 27 people and evicted 55 others from the stadium, according to the Miami-Dade County Police Department.
Among those arrested were Ramón Jesurún, the head of Colombia’s soccer federation, and his son, Ramón Jamil Jesurún. They were charged with battery of a security guard in a stadium tunnel after the match had concluded, with Argentina defeating Colombia, 1-0, in extra time. The younger Jesurún was also charged with grabbing another stadium employee. Father and son spent the night in the Miami-Dade County jail, public records showed.
The chaos caused international embarrassment for organizers of the Copa América, which had already been marred by complaints from players and coaches about the poor quality of the playing surfaces, training facilities and security. After a semifinal match in North Carolina last week, several Uruguayan players jumped into the stands to fight with Colombian fans whom they later said had been threatening the players’ families.
The privately owned NFL stadium in Miami Gardens, north of Miami, has a capacity of 65,326, and the final match was sold out. Stadium workers were forced to lock entrances when fans without tickets tried to force their way in. Stadium gates were “closed and reopened strategically,” a spokesperson said, to try to let ticket-holders in safely.
As the crowds grew, the gates were opened “for a short period of time” to allow in everybody — with or without tickets — “to prevent stampedes and serious injury.” Shortly after, the stadium was deemed at capacity, gates were kept locked, and many fans were unable to get in. Inside, alcohol sales were stopped.
CONMEBOL, the South American soccer federation that put on the tournament, said in a statement late on Monday that it was “subject to decisions made by the authorities at the Hard Rock Stadium, according to contractual responsibilities established for security operations.”
“In addition to the provisions established in said contract, CONMEBOL recommended to said authorities the proven procedures from these magnitude of events, which were NOT followed,” the statement said in Spanish.
A stadium spokesperson did not respond to a request seeking comment on CONMEBOL’s allegation.
Mayor Daniella Levine Cava of Miami-Dade County said earlier Monday that she was “outraged” by what had happened and promised a “deep” review into what had gone wrong. Some 550 police officers had been detailed to the event — more than the 300 assigned to the Super Bowl in 2020 — and several hundred more arrived after the chaos began.
Several fans who attended or tried to attend the match described in interviews a surprising lack of controls. Organizers had said that only people with tickets would be allowed to park on stadium grounds, but some people found no one enforcing that rule.
There was no checkpoint perimeter set up outside the stadium, as is typical for major soccer matches around the world, including the monthlong European championship that concluded in Germany on Sunday. Event staff members were nowhere to be found.
Carlos Zuluaga, a Colombia fan, held on tightly to his wife but was separated from the other six people in their group as they made their way into the stadium. His wife’s watch was stolen, “and she awoke this morning with bruises in her arm, from the pressure and the shoving.”
Still, he considered himself lucky — their group managed to get inside. Fans without tickets settled into hallways until police officers and guards came to kick them out, Zuluaga said.
Mora Bendesky, an Argentina fan based in Mexico, traveled to the tournament with her husband and two young children. They had been to several matches and hoped to see Lionel Messi lift the Copa América for Argentina in person. “It would have been the cherry on the cake,” she said.
Instead, the family watched the match in a hotel room, miles from the stadium, their tickets unused.
They had dressed in Argentina’s colors and walked toward the stadium about 90 minutes before kickoff — only to find commotion, closed gates and heavily armed police officers. A mass of people started “accumulating,” she said. Occasionally, she turned around and saw hundreds of others heading toward them. “That was scary,” she said.
Fans, both Colombian and Argentine, talked openly about not having tickets and jostled for a prime spot in case a gate opened, she said.
The family hung back, hoping that calm would be restored, but police said the gates would not be opened again.
Inside the stadium, Colombian pop star Shakira, hired at great expense, entertained the crowd in a set that broke soccer protocol by extending halftime by nearly 15 minutes.
“They can organize 27 minutes of Shakira but they can’t scan my ticket,” Bendesky said.
As the disorder unfolded outside the stadium on Sunday, Alejandro Domínguez, the president of CONMEBOL, strolled onto the pitch in a prematch walkabout with Colombian singers Maluma and Sebastián Yatra.
While Argentina has won two Copa América titles in recent years, Colombia’s success-starved fans last saw their team in a final more than two decades ago. A berth in the final had energized supporters of Los Cafeteros, bringing thousands to the stadium from Florida and beyond.
The last time the Copa América was held in the United States, in 2016, it had been organized on short notice by the U.S. Soccer Federation; CONCACAF, the governing body for soccer in North America; and a marketing agency tied to Major League Soccer. It was largely trouble-free and brought with it a surge in revenue and the type of exposure that South American soccer officials had long craved.
The disastrous staging of Sunday’s match came just two years out from the World Cup that will be played in North America in 16 cities in the United States, Canada and Mexico, with the final taking place at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. It will amount to the biggest and richest soccer event ever staged, with more teams than any previous edition of the near century-old tournament. The tumultuous Copa América final immediately led to questions about whether a similar experience would be in store for World Cup visitors, though it was not a FIFA tournament.
FIFA, which opened offices in a Miami suburb last year, got a close-up view of the chaos: Its secretary-general, Mattias Grafström, the organization’s No. 2 official, was at the match. FIFA has not commented on the incidents on Sunday and declined to comment on the arrest of the elder Jesurún, who sits on the FIFA Council, the equivalent of its top board.
Lázaro Hernández and his husband, Juan Mendoza, stood outside the stadium gate for about five hours, clad in Colombian jerseys, trying to avoid getting crushed. They did not get in.
The couple had paid about $4,000 for their tickets.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen in the World Cup,” Hernández said, “but I can assure you that I’m not going.”
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