The second of a series of posts as we head towards the FIFA Men's World Cup football tournament.
I have a Financial Times online account through school so am fortunate to be able to read their articles behind the paywall, although quite a few are made available for educational purposes. This one looks at the reduction in hotel prices that has taken place because of the lack of bookings at the original price.
Rising inflation means Americans are cautious about spending big. FIFA has also cancelled a lot of rooms it had originally reserve leaving hotels with unused capacity.
Thousands of tickets also apparently mysteriously disappeared from FIFA ticketing websites earlier in the week. There are lots of theories about why that might have happened.
There are also travel restrictions for people from outside of the USA, and a rise in anti-American sentiment (which is probably also anti-Trump sentiment).
There's also an issue with one of the venues at least... Guadalajara - as outlined in this FT piece.
Here's another change which has annoyed locals in Dallas. A mural has been painted over in the city apparently.
This piece by a former Mexican ambassador to the UN makes it very clear how the World Cup has also lost the original thinking of drawing the three host nations together and changing the world's view of North America.
If you want more details on any particular team, the Guardian Experts' Network has guides on all the teams taking part in the tournament, although some may be depleted as stories are already emerging of players whose visas to enter the USA have been refused.
There is also the coverage from Al Jazeera which offers a different perspective from the usual UK news networks and newspaper. This is the one I will refer to often instead of the BBC.
More to come... there's no shortage of future woes to emerge I'm sure...
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