England to get pleasure from ‘Fort Knox-style’ safety throughout World Cup to ‘maintain out spies’
Oifficials in Kansas City will put up fences and close roads to keep prying eyes away from Three Lions’ training sessions.
Swope Soccer Village will be England’s official base camp for the World Cup(Image: Getty Images)
England’s World Cup base camp will be turned into a football Fort Knox – to keep out spies. Kansas City officials will put up fences and close roads to keep prying eyes away from Three Lions’ training sessions.
Thomas Tuchel ’s team will be based in the Missouri city throughout the tournament and train at Swope Soccer Village – a £15m facility in the middle of a public park.
The local World Cup organising committee hopes to open some training sessions to the community but will restrict access for the rest of England’s stay from its £75m budget.
Chief executive officer of KC2026 Pam Kramer said: “There are some fencing considerations that are being put into place there.”
“There are some traffic control measures. It’s a huge park so it’s not like things are right on top of each other. We feel really good about both the security plan that the team and FIFA have for the facility and our public safety plan around that.”
The Football Association picked Kansas City as England’s base even though the team is not scheduled to play any matches there. Officials view it as a central location with easy access to all other host venues in the US, Mexico and Canada.
Pam said central government funding had been ‘critical’ to the city’s World Cup planning.
“Safety and security is our first, second and third priority, and the federal funding was critical,” she said. “For probably two and a half years I think there are now close to 400 people involved in security planning in Kansas City alone.
“That is local, state, federal, international collaboration and cooperation. It is a complex, coordinated effort. There are 18 areas of focus that the security teams are organised around, everything from police escorts for the teams and other dignitaries to the FIFA fan festival.”
A source close to England said: “The soccer village is a great location but obviously we don’t want just anyone being able to watch training sessions. Privacy and security measures will be put in police to safeguard the team and tactics.”
