Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #586: U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen joins to discuss World Cup 2026 preparation

Episode Date: April 14, 2025

Larsen, a former NASL Sounders ballboy and co-chair of the Congressional Soccer Caucus, sat down to talk about border challenges, drone defenses, getting visas and some of the other work that's ongoing in preparation for World Cup 2026. Vince and Belz and George Quraishi are definitely taking a group to Rome from May 10-18, here's some detail, including a rough itinerary: https://earthlydelights.notion.site/Italia-25-with-Scuffed-1a3f3f1e0145804793e8e83e982168fdAnd here's where you can still sign up: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfp2O1bIr5KNSymt3ayP3ctERCooDo3ADM5Kf_kSHpmr6ITMg/viewformHere's where you can send us a voice message for future episodes: https://www.speakpipe.com/ScuffedPodcast Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody. Today's episode is an interview with U.S. Congressman Rick Larson from the state of Washington. He is on to talk about preparations for the World Cup next summer. A lot of discussion of the border and the challenges that travelers may face getting visas and going back and forth between the Canada and the U.S., which is going to be particularly irrelevant in the Northwest because there are several games each in Vancouver and Seattle. So hopefully enjoy that interview. If you would like the Monday review, which is going to be with Waki and Vince and me, join the Patreon. That is going to be a patron-only episode this week, as it sometimes is. All right, here's the interview with Rick Larson. Welcome to the Scuff podcast where we talk about U.S. soccer. Our guest today was a ballboy for the Seattle Sounders when they played in the NASL.

He was a central defender for the Arlington High School Eagles, just off the Puget Sound, and now he's a member of Congress and co-chair of the Congressional Soccer Caucus that's getting ready for the 2026 World Cup. Representative Rick Larson, welcome to scuffed. Thanks a lot. I appreciate being on. How would you describe your style of play as a centerback? Were you a ball playing centerback? Cruncher? More of a cruncher. I was, so from the age of 8 till about 13, 14, I was actually a striker for club teams out of our town. And Arlington's about about 40 miles north of Seattle. And it was about as far north as you could get where there was an active soccer, active soccer teams, you know, from first grade up until high school age.

And that was in the mid-70s. It has since, of course, expanded. We were the farthest north team north of Seattle at the time in high school. And soccer is certainly blown up. And the time I've grown up was blown up. But about 13 years old, when I was in eighth grade, my club coach came to me and said,

so we're moving you to center defense this fall and spring. We played two seasons. Of course, I was a striker. Like, what are you doing? That's crazy. I want to score goals.

And they said, the high school coach has seen you play. You're really fast. You handle the ball well. And we need to move you to. And I was, I'm 6-2 now. I was about, I don't know, 5-8, 5-9 and growing.

And they said, we need you to center. defense. So you can, you need to be as fast, uh, and handle the ball as well as the, um, center forward's going to be playing against in high school. So it, they moved me and, um, ended up playing three years varsity, uh, three years varsity there. And had a great time, um, fell away for a while, but, uh, stayed active and interested, of course, uh, the whole time in the, in the beautiful game. It's been great. Do you, do you, do you go back to, uh, center back when you play the, in the congressional soccer matches or do you, do you moonlight as a

striker again? I'm moonlight as a striker. So I played so in the congressional soccer match for your listeners, it's not just members of Congress reliving the glory days. We play with retired U.S. men and U.S. women's national team players as well. And then there are folks who are sponsoring events and they get to put people in. So that said, and this is not being breaking. I am just one of the few members of Congress who's played soccer and knows what they're doing out there. Right, right.

So I end up playing, and I'm right-footed, naturally right-footed, but I end up playing on the left side, again, largely because we kind of get the game. And I know it's not just a matter of just running back and forth all the time or kicking the ball and running after it. There's actually stop and go, stop and go. So, yeah. Okay, cool. So one more question about that. You scored a goal in one of those games. What type of a goal was it?

Can you describe the goal for us? The best, the greatest, ever, ever. It was just, you might be surprised when members of Congress who are all, you know, older, we're playing with these folks who really know what they're doing. And sometimes you just need to be in the right position, again, knowing how to play. So it's just a center, centering ball on the ground and just a flick into the goal. First time finish? Yeah, first time finished.

Nothing too exciting, nothing too great. But it counted, but it counts. Okay, let's talk about this big tournament coming up. So there are going to be several games each in Vancouver and Seattle. But the U.S. Canada border has gotten trickier lately. Yeah, yeah. Last month. Yeah.

Well, go ahead. Certainly we've got some challenges ahead of us because it's a three-country World Cup and that has enough challenges. So Vancouver is hosting seven games and Seattle has six games. But really only two city pairings where you could literally just plant yourself in Seattle and for the next three weeks go back and forth and just see. all the games. And keep in mind, too, for folks, this is like 78 Super Bowls in the span of three to four weeks. And so there's just to be a lot of people. Some who've never watched soccer, who might be interested, some who've never been to the United States who are coming to watch soccer. And now you throw in an international border, especially in the Pacific Northwest,

and you're going to have challenges. Just some of the challenges we're going to face, one is just the sure volume of people. That's one. Second is security costs at in this case, Lumenfield in, in Seattle and I think probably BC place in Vancouver. In the United States, we're trying to find $625 million to help pay for state and local security costs. Because FIFA, right, how's that going? Is it? Well, yeah, we've made the request. I think there's a letter going out in the next couple of days to the White House to say, look, we need this. need to either find it or you need to put it in your budget before it comes to Capitol Hill. We need to get this money in place so it can start getting planned and deployed and that is spent.

So at each stadium, there's going to be additional security costs. Interestingly, for the U.S. and Canada right now, obviously it's not great. I was just in Canada last week and visit with some folks. There's a lot of B.C., British Columbia and Washington State things that happen. And so I was there to kind of talk to some things, people about things going on, but talk to some elected folks, too, about, you know, we have a foundational relationship with British Columbia. The U.S. and Canada still has a foundational relationship, and we can't let that get in a way of successful games. Because an unsuccessful Vancouver, Toronto set of games for FIFA means an unsuccessful set of games for the U.S. And we're just tied together.

It's just going to see what it is. So that's, so the. security cost is one. Another issue to keep in mind is we have different visa laws. So FIFA is going to take care of visas for the teams. And each team brings about 100 people. Think of the teams, the coaches, training staff, blah, blah, blah. But now you've got folks who are coming in all over the world. Some of those folks can travel to the U.S. on a visa waiver. Like, we won't require a visa to come to U.S., but they might require a visa to go to Canada. Or vice versa. You fly into Vancouver. You don't need a visa. then you want to come to the U.S., but you're from a country where we require a visa.

So you might have fans trapped at the border because they're on visa. So it's a big coordination issue for the government, for FIFA, and for the individual cities. You know, a lot of us are just going to watch the games, and they're not going to look at the, you know, man behind the curtain. But there's a lot of man behind the curtain stuff going on right now to make this, make these successful because it's a three country game. So the issue might be somebody would come, they would get a visa or they would be able to come to the U.S. without a visa. And then, but then it's like the crossing the border into Canada and then coming back from Canada to the U.S. That is the issue. To be crossing the border into Canada.

Look, for instance, to enter Canada to go into Canada, they might need a visa. Now, if you're a U.S. citizen, you don't, right? I have a passport or official accepted ID. But I don't know what country it is. It's more likely that you could go to, you go to Canada direct. and you didn't need a visa, but the U.S. might require a visa because you're a citizen of a third country. You're not a Canadian. You're not an American. You're a citizen of a third country. And then you'd be turned back. I mean, you just, and you'd have to go to the U.S. consulate in Vancouver, you know,

apply for a visa, blah, blah, blah, blah. And will you get into Seattle in time to watch the game, right? And so there's a lot of know before you go conversations going on, know what's going to be required of you as a traveler before you go. All of this sort of ties into what is going to make the FIFA World Cup and these three countries a success. And that's where the federal government comes in, where Congress comes in to highlight these issues for the White House, for the National Security Council, for the folks who do immigration and visas at State Department. And it's all, and it all should have happened yesterday. Yeah, that's the thing is, like, how confident are you that this stuff is going to get sorted out? Because, like, there was a backpacker, a Welsh backpacker. I don't know the details of it, but she was held in a detention center in Washington.

There was a guy in a German guy in Tijuana who, I don't know the details of these situations, but they're pretty, like, you know, two weeks and locked up. You know, it's just, if it's a onezy, twozy circumstance, you can handle that. I, folks might remember the flight of the Concords, the New Zealand comedy musical duo. Yeah, I saw their concert here. I'm in Washington, D.C. right now. I saw their concert here in D.C. as a guest to the New Zealand embassy. And then I got to meet Jermaine and Britt backstage.

We had a great conversation. I met their manager. Well, they're headed to Seattle as part of this tour. Well, Britt had friends in Vancouver because they're Commonwealth countries, New Zealand and Vancouver. So they land in Seattle. Britt decides he's going to go to visit his friends in Vancouver, which he does as a New Zealander he can go into Canada, it's Commonwealth. He wants to come back, but he's on a work visa because he's a musical talent. So he has to have a visa to be working in the United States. He didn't have

that work visa with him. So he got turned back at the U.S. border and he had to do the show that night. So his manager got in touch with us. We talked to the U.S. consulate in Vancouver and said, I will vouch for Britt McKinsey for you to give him a visa. He is who he says he is. And they knew who he was too. But it's like, you know, so he got in that, you know, the show must go on. Again, if it's a onesy-to-sie kind of thing, you know, we'll figure it out.

But if you've got like whole, you know, groups of people traveling from a country, we've got to be ready for, I've got to plan for that. plan for the sheer volume of people moving back and forth. Taylor Swift had her concerts last five or three concerts in Vancouver for her recent tour. And so the U.S. Canada Customs folks kept the lines open longer. And a Monday morning at 3 a.m., so at her third concert was Sunday night, Monday morning at 3 a.m., coming down from Vancouver, CBP or Customs Border Protection, still had like four lanes open, just accommodating Taylor Swift traffic. That was the sheer volume of people that will be coming back and forth between U.S. and Canada.

And so the coordination issue, again, that's why I said we should have, you know, certainly unlikely to be done yesterday. But do we have enough time? We're going to find out. And we're pushing the administration. They know it. the president set up this task force to coordinate this work. He's been vocal about supporting the World Cup games, the World Cup game, soccer game matches that are taking place.

So there's a lot of good attention. But now it's just like, you know, can we get over, can we get past ourselves to get this done? We get this done well. How does talk about making Canada the 51st state help with coordination with your British Colombian colleagues? I like to remind my British Columbia friends. I mean, all my Canadian friends is like, it was called British Canada before it became independent from Great Britain. You were never part of the United States.

And we never want you to be part of the United States. So we'll take your music. And I'll take your radio stations. Go down the list. But we don't need you as a state. But it is, it's insulting, truthfully. It's very insulting, and it heightens the, as we saw at the Nation's League games for the hockey, the hockey matches. It certainly heightens the patriotism of both countries.

But then in the end, it's just, you know, folks, it's just a football match. Let's just play and win or tie or whatever we do. Let's get stuff done. Okay. We are going to take a break. If you would like to get scuffed ad-free every episode without advertisements. Join the Patreon. The link is in the show notes. Also, one other announcement.

The trip to Rome is happening in a little under a month. There are still slots available. 13 of us are going. Vince is going to be there. I'm going to be there. George Qureshi is running point on the trip, just like he did last spring. It's going to be amazing. We're going to go see Lazio Juve and the plan is to see Roma, Milan.

So in consecutive weekends, in the middle of that week, there's a Copa Italia, Final. Milan may be in that if they get a result against Inter in the middle of this week. So consider it. Maybe your schedule opened up and you can make the trip now. It's not too late. I'll put the link in the show notes where you can express your interest. There will also be a link with details about the trip.

It's not too late. Join the roster. All right, we're back in a minute. One other thing is Visa wait times. Like the, do you sense of desire from the administration to improve those? Yeah, this is one of the issues that are really, there's much less this visa waiver issue, you fly to one country, but you don't have visas to get another country and so on. But just getting the visas.

And that's why, you know, FIFA, again, FIFA will take care of the teams, ensure the teams get in, get things in time. I do think FIFA, if it's not, I think FIFA has a little bit more responsive. about promoting the No Before You Go concept and not leaving it to the Canada, the U.S., to Mexico, or the host cities, that they really need to be sure that they want, you know, multi-billions of people watching it on TV and seeing full stadiums, then people need to be able to get into the countries and be here on time. And so I think FIFA has some responsibility to urge fans once they get tickets to include in the ticket package. Here's a step by step. Here's what you need to do. The other thing that's certainly the U.S. and Canada and Mexico, but U.S. has a responsibility as well to recognize that we're on the world stage on this one.

We're always on the world stage in the United States. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. This one can be really, really good. and for the U.S. And one element of that is not just a great championship game, but as well, fans saying how great it was to be here, how easy it was to get here, how easy it was to get around, how great U.S. fans were, things like that.

But that first part about getting here, we don't need stories about people having a plane ticket, having tickets to see their team in the U.S., And then not yet having their visa even though they applied, you know, whatever, six months ago or some time ago. Yeah. Okay. So we got the so we got the border and customers and border stuff, the $625 million. What else are you, what else are you thinking about and working on to get ready?

Yeah. Well, for me, I've already told my staff, I'll be on leave for three and a half weeks, June, July, 26. No, on June 19th, June 10th, 20206 is the U.S. men's teams playing in Seattle. And so I'm hell or high water are going to try to get to that game, get a ticket somehow. And so that's like, that's a Rick thing. That's the thing I have to do for me. But, you know, you look at, so the security obviously costs, the border of the visa. one issue we're working on with

Homeland Security is this issue of I don't call it force protection or stadium protection think back if you know I'm a Seattle guy people ask me like what's your favorite Premier League team? I say to Seattle Sounders. I said no I'm moving in Premier League. I said no you don't

understand. It's Seattle Sounders and everything else. I mean, I grew up with the Sounders. I don't, you got to have a team. They're my team. But that means it's also the Seattle Seahawks. It's a Seattle Mariners and so on. A few years ago on Sunday Night Football, the Seattle Seahawks were playing, and they had to stop the game, the rough stopped the game because there was a drone,

200 feet above the stadium. And just straight up from the 50-yard line. They stopped the game because they can't have that happen. It's not just an NFL copyright thing. But you don't know what that drone is doing. It turned to be some idiot playing with his drone when he shouldn't have been playing with it there. but it does underscore with the advancement of drones the count what we call counter UAS capabilities that are going to be necessary to protect stadiums.

You can't have drones flying around these stadiums with 85,000 people and with countries that, you know, on the field, they might get along just great. These countries may not be getting along otherwise, you know, country to country for whatever reason. And you have a lot of people, 78 Super Bowls in the span of three, three and a half weeks, it is potentially, these are potentially target areas, sadly, like with the Super Bowl or the Democratic Convention or the Republican Convention. Yeah.

You've got to, like, have a lockdown on securities, and part of that is in the airspace. So another issue we're working on with the Major League teams, Major League sports associations, NFL, Major League Baseball, NASCAR, as well. while others. And with FIFA is security around the stadiums. And what we need to ensure is that there's a, what we call a counter UAS capability, a counter drone capability, basically to zap drones out of the sky that aren't supposed to be there. There's different ways to do that. I don't want to get into, I don't want to discuss about methods here, but there are different ways to do that. But you also have to have people trained to do that. It's not anybody. So we've got to pass some legislation.

here in Congress to facilitate the training of state and local law enforcement in counter UAS as well as in the in the in the uh using the right tools to do counter UAS and and and we're you know just had NFL in my office yesterday I had FIFA security in my office two weeks ago to talk about this and we're on the committee on one of the committees there's three of us three committees that oversee this bill and we're all in agreement This is a bill where you have like Democrats like me and Jamie Raskin and Benny Thompson, who's from Mississippi in agreement with Mark Green from Tennessee, Jim Jordan from Ohio, and Sam Graves from Missouri, Democrats, Republicans, conservatives, liberals, and we've all come to an agreement on how to do this.

So it's kind of a, you know, for those who don't track Congress that much, I know people track it enough to know we don't get along. There's actually six of us who are trying to get it. this thing done from the spectrum of the political political spectrum because it is important to get done. And so that's one of the issues that. So what would the legislation do? Would it like you're going to put blaster turrets on the around the top of the limit details on what it will do? But so it's a counter-UAS bill. Right now we have some some limited legal authorities that is authorities for law enforcement to use counter-UAS. But because of the number of stadiums, in FIFA, which is the driver, because of the number of stadiums and the sizes of crowds we're expecting,

we need to have basically a larger force to do this than currently exists. As well, NFL, Major League Baseball, NASCAR, they want it to be a consistent authority, not just for FIFA, but like for any time there's these big events. Okay. The truth of it is we don't have, there aren't enough people in law enforcement who are trained to do this. You just can't, it's a skill you have to develop. It's a capability that you have to develop. So whatever tool it is, whether it's shooting electrons into space to knock out the drone's signal, whether it's kinetic that, you know, you hit the drone.

It can be any number of things. There are standards for that, but then you saw that people trained to a proficiency to actually do this. It's very important. It's not, this isn't fake stuff. There are cases not just of drones being above airspace. There are cases of misuses or people legitimately using counter UAAS capabilities that are interfering with other things going on in the airspace. So you want to, we call it the term is de-conflict. You want to de-conflict the things that are already happening in the airspace.

space, airplanes flying over, as for instance. And you want to deconflict or prevent that counter-UAS capability from interfering with other things that are okay. So it doesn't cause a commercial jet to crash as well. You said it. I didn't. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Okay. So President Trump announced that there was, there's going to be a White House task force on the 26th World Cup. What does this mean? What is this task force doing? Is it doing anything?

Does it really exist? That's a really fair question. The executive order that he put together, established this task force. It was an executive order that the Biden administration put together and just didn't get around to announcing. The Biden folks did have people identified in the National Security Council because this is a, you know, it's, it is a big national security event to have hundreds of thousands of people coming and doing 70 at Super Bowls. So there are people who have the background. experience over the last couple years thinking through this. I think what the president is doing, which is great.

We actually put a letter out from the Soccer Caucus in Congress. There's a caucus for everything. And there are four chairs of the soccer caucus, commanding the president and his team for doing this. The idea of the task force is just to be sure there's within the White House, within the body of the White House, that it is the coordinating entity for all the other activities. So that Homeland Security is talking to the Defense Department, and they're talking to commerce, and they're talking to State Department that does visas and so on. So that they're not doing their work separately, but there's a forcing function at the top of that pyramid. And a group, an interagency, you hear that term a lot.

It just means people from different agencies getting together to coordinating their work. An interagency group and effort that's all pushing. in one direction. And that's the value of this task force. He hasn't yet appointed an executive director, someone who actually be doing this. But so we're trying to get him like, you got to get moving on this, on this, on this part. Because this other work is going on. So the work is happening. But it does need to get coordinated at the top. And that's the purpose of this task force. It's a good idea. It's a right approach given the size of this, 12 cities, the international flavor of it as well.

What other cities are you like sort of working with or talking to about how they're, how they're handling it? Yeah, obviously, you know, I think there were 12 or 11 U.S. cities. I care about Seattle the most, obviously. Really, just really interesting mix. I mean, you think of Seattle. We are a big soccer town, big soccer region. A reason they picked Seattle for one of the cities is Gregor Hulter.

one of the last things he did was push for Seattle to be the other city because he knows his pitch was we know that we're on the bus from the hotel of the stadium there'll be 100,000 fans in red, white and blue. Berhalter made that case, huh? Huh? Burrhalter made that case. He made that case. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So we're great, happy to have it. But then you've got certainly barring, let's not talk about the semis and the championship, which will be. and you think Arlington, Texas and Jerry World, the big stadium, and then it met life. Those are going to be kind of out of this world opportunities. But L.A., right? So L.A., big stadium, big city, and then Kansas City. They're going to be at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. I mean, they have the current doing well.

They've got sporting Kansas City. I don't like because they're in the Western Conference and they beat us all the time. But that kind of gives you the range of the cities that are hosting, right? L.A. known for everything. Hollywood, for Rams, for soccer, blah, everything. Kansas City, known for the Chiefs. And probably a lot of other things if you're from there, but known for football and the Super Bowl.

Barbecue. Yeah. Yeah. Barbecue. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But not really for soccer.

And so the folks in Kansas City are really actually doing really good job. They're really pushing the security dollar, security dollars message. Okay. Because this is a big, it's a big damn deal for Kansas City. It's a big city, a great new airport. I mean, it's going to be a really a great host city. It's just this is going to be like the thing for three weeks there. Yeah.

So different, this is, so I think I like, you know, I'll get direct. flight's Kansas City from Seattle. If I could, and I'm in Seattle, I'd love to get out there and support Shrease Davids is a representative from Kansas City, Kansas. And she's been a leader mover on this, on this issue on security dollars. Okay, one last question. We've got to go soon. But why is soccer so big in the Northwest? You know, it is clearly something that matters to a lot of people up there. Yeah. So like I said, I played when I was started playing when I was eight. So that was 1973. And, uh, and I was two years late. I had team, when I was eight, I had friends who had been playing since they were five and six. Um, and I, I don't know why, except I can

speculate. We're known, I was telling people, you can't have the green without the gray. Right. It rains a lot. Uh, and the northwest. And, but, like you don't stay inside when it rains at all not where I come from and for Pete's sake if you're coming to the Northwest it rains during the games don't bring an umbrella you will identify yourself as someone who doesn't belong we don't use umbrellas we're very proud of that so I'm just thinking about like these families like I grew up in like families like I can't have you in the house all the time you know I know it's wet I know it's raining but you've got to get out of house and Maybe that was it.

Like, we're just like, and soccer is a sport. You need a ball, something that qualifies as a goal, which could be a stick in the ground, that you just knock over with the ball, two sticks in the ground, and a patch of grass or gravel or cement or who cares. You don't need a lot. And gentle rain is actually good for soccer. Exactly. I played, you know, a lot of us, you know, I'm not, I played in snow. I played in rain.

I played in blistering heat. And that was on the same day in the Northwest. So I played in all of it. And maybe that's it, you know. Maybe that's it. It's a very popular sport in the Northwest. Has been for a long, long time. Awesome.

Well, good luck with all your work, getting ready for the big event. You know, we're all excited about it. And by big event, you mean the May 7th congressional soccer game at Audi Field. in less in about three or four weeks. Exactly what I meant, yeah. All right. Thanks a lot for that time. I appreciate it.

Thank you to Representative Larson. Thanks, everybody for listening. We'll see you.