Boston’s World Cup Volunteer Rollout Plan Has Felt ‘Amateurish’

Boston’s World Cup Volunteer Rollout Plan Has Felt ‘Amateurish’ originally appeared on NESN.
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Saturday marks the first of seven FIFA World Cup games that will be played at “Boston Stadium” in Foxborough, with Scotland taking on Haiti.

The World Cup is widely regarded as the largest single-sport athletic event, drawing staggering viewership worldwide. To stage the massive event taking place across 16 different host cities in three countries for over a little more than a month, more than 50,000 volunteers will be deployed.

In Boston, FIFA expects around 1,500 volunteers to participate in the seven games, but the volunteer process appears to have been anything but smooth. Michael Silverman, Chris Serres and Milton J. Valencia of The Boston Globe highlighted the struggles people faced when trying to volunteer in Boston for the World Cup, with some calling the process “amateurish.”

“With kickoff now only days away, many of the 1,500 volunteers who made the cut find themselves confronting unexpected questions,” Silverman, Serres and Valencia recently wrote. “What, exactly, have they signed up for? More than a dozen applicants from New England described a cascade of logistical letdowns: canceled training events, rejection emails sent in error, incorrect birthdates that delayed their accreditation, vague or missing role descriptions, a pickup site for uniforms in downtown Boston with an unmarked entrance and no staff to greet arrivals, and large group ‘tryouts’ where applicants were not given clear criteria for selection. 

“Months of confusion and missteps have worn thin the patience of even the most devoted soccer fans — those who once thrilled at the idea of helping stage a spectacle that soccer’s global governing body, FIFA, projects will be viewed by some 6 billion people, or nearly three-quarters of humanity. Many volunteers remain in a fog of uncertainty, unsure of their roles in a tournament that is just days away.”

All of the logistical confusion even led some to back out of volunteering for the events entirely.

“The entire operation felt amateurish, like no one had ever done this before,” said Warren Lee, who withdrew from the process out of frustration, per Silverman, Serres and Valencia. “It’s a major time commitment, and if I’m going to dedicate a week of my life to something, then I want to do it with people who know what they’re doing.”

As the excitement for the first Boston matchup between Scotland and Haiti has only grown with the tournament now officially underway, it’s unfortunate to hear that fans faced issues when trying to volunteer for the festivities.

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