The Copa America final was a security disaster, and America needs to figure out FAST what went wrong.

The World Cup will be played in America in 2026, and the security failures at the Copa America final shows that America has a LOT of work to do before it is prepared to handle the influx of visitors for the world's biggest sporting event.

When Argentina faced off against Colombia in what should have been a celebration of some of the premier athletes in America, the event quickly became recognized for being a massive security failure instead of a great sporting spectacle.

Even the President of Colombia's Football Federation was arrested.

It should have been a great day for Colombian soccer, considering they were playing in the final in one of the world's most prestigious tournaments, the Copa America. Instead of a giant celebration after the game though, the country suffered multiple embarrassments.

Not only did Colombia lose to an Argentina team that was playing without superstar Lionel Messi, the president of Colombia's Football Federation and his son were arrested after the match.

According to ESPN, "Colombia Football Federation president Ramón Jesurún and his son, Ramón Jamil Jesurún, are facing battery charges on a specified official or employee after being arrested by Miami-Dade police at Hard Rock Stadium following the 2024 Copa América final."

"The two men were booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center just after 4:10 a.m. Monday, according to jail records. The father, 71, and son, 43, are accused of fighting multiple security guards at one of the stadium's tunnels used for the media as they tried to gain access to the field, according to the arrest report," the article continued.

Problems before the match as well

Even before the first kick of the ball, it was extremely clear that this was no ordinary event. Perhaps the buzz and pageantry of having one of the world's biggest soccer tournaments right here in America was too much for fans to handle, but security breaches delayed the start of the game for quite a while.

Before the match, many fans who did not have tickets rushed into the grounds, overwhelming security guards. Needless to say, having fans without tickets in the grounds was going to create a nightmare for seating and capacity, so authorities had to do something.

As a result, they started letting ticketed fans into the event very slowly, but this meant that people were not going to be able to get to their seats for the advertised start time of the match. Because of this, the start of the match was pushed back to allow for the chaos to settle.

Evidenced by the fact that Colombia had the President of its Football Federation arrested after the match, things did not calm down as much as security would have hoped.

The Daily Mail laid out a huge list of problems surrounding the final of the big tournament, indicating that many of these issues were mentioned by coaches and fans of the players on the field. One of the issues was "dynamic pricing," which uses algorithms to quickly change prices for the matches based on demand.

This meant that tickets were made so expensive for many matches that the games were played in front of half-filled stands, which is NOT a good look for a country about to host a World Cup.

Then, once it came time for a match that all of the tickets had been sold to, staff wasn't ready to handle the chaos. America needs to get this figured out before the 2026 World Cup rolls around, or we're going to be facing all of these issues all over again very soon.