How will hosts Sporting KC & Kansas City Current adjust to World Cup base camps?

The announcements that the Netherlands, England and Argentina will set up base camps in Kansas City for the 2026 FIFA World Cup have brought plenty of fanfare. And rightfully so.

But it raises an interesting question for both Sporting KC and the Kansas City Current, whose teams use those facilities: Where will those teams train?

The Current has one additional conundrum over Sporting KC, as the NWSL club plays matches during the World Cup calendar.

Here’s a look at the plans for both squads.

Kansas City Current has built-in plan

The NWSL will take a four-week break after the slate of matches held May 29-31. The Current will host Boston Legacy FC on May 30.

While the NWSL resumes play on July 3, the Current will compete in the NWSL Challenge Cup on June 26 in Columbus, Ohio. Then, NWSL matches are scheduled for July 3, 10 and 17 during the knockout stages, so the KC Current players will need to train elsewhere.

Current co-owner Chris Long said in an interview with The Star that the Current players would continue “uninterrupted” on-site at the team’s new training facility, built a stone’s throw south of the existing property in Riverside, where the Netherlands will call home.

“Part of the vision behind building Riverside stadium and doubling the performance center space was to create a separate, private space that the team can move into when a country — now the Netherlands — takes over the primary facility,” Long said. “We have every single thing that we need in the expanded space to continue to do our thing.”

Each of the KC Current games that overlap with the World Cup knockout stages is either on a match day or the day before. With the likelihood of teams and their fans still remaining in the market during that period, Long says the Current are looking into ways to invite international fans to watch the team play.

How Sporting KC will adjust

While Major League Soccer is on pause from the weekend of May 23 to July 16, Sporting KC may also face issues. Sporting had originally planned to use Swope Soccer Village as its training home during the World Cup window, while an international squad used Compass Minerals National Performance Center.

But England’s request to use Swope while Argentina uses the Compass Minerals National Performance Center was impossible to turn down, despite the bind it put Sporting in.

Sporting will resume training to build toward the second half of the MLS season on June 11, a little more than a month out of its first game back from the World Cup break, in Saint Louis on July 16.

While there might be an opportunity to move back into Swope or its usual training center, Sporting is also evaluating options outside the Kansas City metro, though no decision has been made yet.

Daniel Sperry covers soccer for The Star. He can be reached at sperry.danielkc@gmail.com.