PHILADELPHIA — There are a lot of people involved in Philadelphia’s planning to host games in the 2026 men’s World Cup. Some are big-picture types, and some are nuts-and-bolts types.
Chris Sharkoski is the latter, just about literally.
The Eagles’ veteran director of event operations has a lot on his plate already with 3½ years to go, and there will only be more as the clock counts down. For example, some renovations will be needed to welcome not just fans from around the world but media, dignitaries, security, and team staffs.
If you’ve watched games at this year’s World Cup, you might have noticed the many rows of press seats built into the upper decks of those stadiums. They’re for all the TV and radio networks whose broadcasters will call games, as well as reporters for newspapers, websites and so on.
That setup doesn’t currently exist at Lincoln Financial Field, so it will have to be built.
If you went to the 2003 women’s World Cup here or the 2015 one in Canada, you might recall seeing parts of the lower deck carved out for VIPs. Whether or not the big shots deserve such luxury, if FIFA asks for it, FIFA will get it.
And while the Linc’s grass surface is wide enough for FIFA rules, the total amount of field-level space is cutting it close. Some other NFL teams hosting games, such as the Kansas City Chiefs, already know they’ll have to remove rows of seats from their stadiums.
Sharkoski opened up the Eagles to doing so more than a year ago, when a delegation of FIFA officials visited Lincoln Financial Field and the rest of the city. Earlier this month, he went to Qatar for another round of meetings, joining officials from all 16 host cities for 2026 and some from next year’s women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
“The biggest encompassing takeaway is the scope of what these matches will be,” Sharkoski told The Philadelphia Inquirer in an interview after returning home. “We’ve hosted our fair share of soccer matches here at the stadium, but this [World Cup] is just — and rightfully so — the largest ones that will be played in the world. So, just understanding that with that comes a lot more than what we have seen in the past.”
How different will the Linc look in the summer of 2026 from how it does now?
“We had talked to FIFA about the width of the field and possibly taking out a couple corners of the field to make to kind of get us to where we need to be for FIFA match standards,” said Sharkoski, a 46-year-old Bensalem native who’s in his 23rd NFL season with the Eagles.
“A lot of the stuff that I saw over there [in Qatar] that we’re going to have to implement, in no specific order, is: VIP hospitality build-outs, credential center build-outs, media tribune build-outs within the stadium itself,” he said.
Most of the hospitality spaces and the credential center will be built outside the stadium. Sharkoski has dealt with such things for past soccer events: not just the 2003 World Cup, but the 2015 Concacaf Gold Cup and 2016 Copa América Centenario. And plenty of other events have had extra security or hospitality, from Army-Navy football games to NCAA lacrosse championships.
“But nothing to the level we will see when we host the World Cup,” Sharkoski said.
The most visible difference from how things usually are probably will be the ticketing perimeter around the stadium. It won’t just be the fences as fans know them now, it will be much bigger. Sharkoski said the current plan — developed by the city in conjunction with the pro teams — is to have it go up to Pattison Avenue on the north side, and across 11th Street into the Wells Fargo Center’s parking lots on the west side.
The perimeter won’t go all the way to Broad Street. But it will seal off the “K” parking lots north of the Linc’s main entrance, between Darien and 11th Streets. And if you’re used to 11th Street being open to the public on Eagles game days, know that it likely won’t be for the World Cup.
“One thing we did notice over in Qatar [is] what they really wanted to focus on was having people not drive to the venues,” Sharkoski said. “I know it’s a different country and a different culture over there as far as how they come and go out of places, but it’s something that we noticed: that FIFA wanted to drive people in on foot and on public transit and stuff like that, not necessarily in personal vehicles.”
FIFA will get its wish here, too. While many Philadelphians love to hate SEPTA, the Broad Street Line was one of the city’s biggest assets in winning the World Cup bidding race. Several other cities, winners and losers alike, don’t have as good public transit access to their stadiums.
Whatever renovations there are at Linc, Sharkoski will keep in mind how long it will take to put things back to how they were before. Though it’s not exactly clear when the World Cup will start and end, it’s safe to assume it will go from early June until early-to-mid-July.
No matter the exact dates, there won’t be too much time to adjust things before the NFL preseason starts.
“We presented our plan to FIFA with the knowledge of, we have to work with them as we move along and see how it works,” Sharkoski said. “We want to be able to deliver the best product to them, obviously, but then also be able to turn right around and deliver the similar product to our NFL fans.”
And what if a change works so well that the Eagles decide to leave it there?
“That’s something that we really wouldn’t probably discover until we get into it and see how it works,” Sharkoski said. “If something is changed, and functionality-wise it can be applied to the stadium moving forward post-World Cup, then yeah, I’m sure it’s something that would be explored for sure.”
