Features

Cardiff, Kansas City to debut as International Champions Cup hosts

Cardiff’s Principality Stadium and Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium will host International Champions Cup matches for the first time this summer, with Tottenham Hotspur’s new stadium also included in the venue line-up for the pre-season football tournament.

Principality Stadium is primarily a rugby union venue but has hosted a number of high-profile football matches, including the FA Cup final from 2001 to 2006 and the UEFA Champions League final in 2017.

The 73,000-seat stadium will host a match between Manchester United and AC Milan on August 3 in what will mark the first ICC game in Wales.

Arrowhead Stadium will also host its first ICC match when Bayern Munich and AC Millan meet on July 23. The stadium, which has a capacity of 76,000, serves as the home of NFL American football team the Kansas City Chiefs.

The ICC’s debut in Kansas City comes on the back of recent success for Major League Soccer team Sporting Kansas City, which finished top of the Western Conference in 2018.

Meanwhile, Tottenham Hotspur’s state-of-the-art new stadium has been pencilled in to host an ICC game on August 4. Tottenham will take on Italian team Inter Milan at the new stadium, which officially opened last weekend with a test event.

The 2019 ICC gets underway on July 16 with AS Roma vs Chivas at Chicago’s SeatGeek Stadium. Other host venues include Dignity Health Sports Park (Los Angeles), Singapore National Stadium, Bank of America Stadium (Charlotte), NRG Stadium (Houston), Levi’s Stadium (Bay Area), FedEx Field (Washington D.C.), Globe Life Park (Arlington), Nanjing Olympic Sports Complex, Red Bull Arena (New York), Hongkou Football Stadium (Shanghai), MetLife Stadium (New York), Gillette Stadium (Boston) and Friends Arena (Stockholm).

The tournament will be contested by Real Madrid, Manchester United, Tottenham, Arsenal, Roma, Juventus, AC Milan, Inter, Atlético Madrid, Bayern Munich, Benfica and Chivas.