NYC Mayor Mamdani on hosting the World Cup, USMNT & Andy Burnham

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1:06Discover the V-Series lineup at Cadillac.com. The Football Daily at the FIFA World Cup 2026. With Matt Catman. Listen on BBC Sounds. Hello, welcome to a slightly different episode of the Football Daily. I've been speaking to the mayor of New York City, Zoran Mandami. And we covered a wide range of subjects from sport, the New York Knicks, Trump playing chess, and his love of English cricket. But first, we began with the positive effect of the USA's start to this World Cup. It's been incredible. First of all, it's great to be here. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. Thank you for being in our beautiful city.

1:45And the start that the US men's national team has had, it's given everyone just a sense of real excitement. We always hope and pray for the host nation bump. But what we've seen from these first two games, that tonight is not a decider, but rather an option to see more players. That's more than we could ever ask for. Do you notice a difference in this city because of how they have started? Or is it not irrelevant how they have started, but very much below still what the Knicks did? It's hard to compare anything to the Knicks. You know, we waited 53 years to win that championship. I will say that it does feel like New Yorkers have an extra spring in our step.

2:24And, you know, tonight we're very excited because we're going to be broadcasting the USA-Turkia game on a number of kiosks that we have around New York City, Link NYC kiosks. So what are they? Sorry, when you say kiosks, what are they? When you're walking around New York City, you'll see these kind of larger kiosks on a number of sidewalks. And you'll see it'll give you the weather, there'll be different updates, sometimes there are advertisements. and what we started doing with the Knicks is broadcasting the game on those kiosks so you could just be walking around the city and you can catch the game and we're going to be doing that tonight as well for USA.

2:58Look to the UK audience they may not know a great deal about basketball and we've talked about it a fair bit since we've been here okay because it is such a massive story and it doesn't matter if you know basketball or not anybody who supports a team to for a team to end a 53-year drought for something. Everybody knows what that means. What have you noticed has changed about this city because of a sports team winning as the mayor? It feels like the Knicks transformed the biggest city in the country into the smallest town in the world. It feels like they created a fabric that connects all of us.

3:36And it didn't matter whether you've been watching this team for decades or you just started watching it in the final games but everybody was living and breathing this team and it felt as if time stopped when the games began and the beautiful thing was some of it was organized some of it was beautifully unorganized you know we we would watch you'd go out and you'd watch the game at a bar or you'd be in a backyard or at a friend's place there'd be people who'd just be broadcasting the game on the wall across the street. And I think it just spoke to this energy that this team gave this entire city.

4:12And the fact that the city could look at the team and see themselves, not just in the players. You know, one of, you know, Jose Alvarado grew up in New York City in public housing and is a son of Brooklyn and Queens, but also in the way that the team played. They really embodied the spirit of the city. You are a genuine New York Knicks fan. You're a genuine Arsenal fan as well, which I will come on to. I will come on to in a moment. It's been a good year. It's been a good year. Depends on your perspective, Zoran, I'll be honest with you. But anyhow, I'll bring these two with their Arsenal connections in a moment.

4:46Has what the Knicks did, and maybe even what you saw with Arsenal and how it affected London, has that changed your perspective of where you put sport in your list of priorities as a politician?

5:02I think it's shown us the intangible value of this game, one that sometimes is derided as if it's a distraction. It is a cornerstone of how people understand themselves and the world around them. And you know, you're asking me questions about New York City. Eight and a half million people live in New York City. And in the largest city in the United States of America, it can also feel quite lonely sometimes for people. It can feel as if they're alienated from those around them. And these are moments that bring people together. And I'll tell you that for me, just individually, before I was the mayor, sports have just always been such a way that I've understood who I am, what I believe in, how I build my day.

5:43And I think that part of fighting back against the commodification of sport, the insistence that it becomes yet another luxury product, is also a recognition of what it provides so many people, not just in those 90 minutes or, you know, additional time, but frankly, even what it represents to so many more. So as a man born outside of America, when you came here, did sport give you a belonging immediately? Absolutely. I mean, initially, my sport initially was chess. Was it? Was it? And I learned something that most people don't understand, which is that anyone can be nationally ranked because no one ever asks you where are you ranked.

6:23you just have to be national. So you know I was probably one of the lowest ranked nationally ranked chess players in America but initially I fell in love with chess and and then very quickly it became soccer football. What did you what did you like about chess because it's interesting that that's where you started out which is a very solitary sport but you've fallen in love with two two big team sports. I think honestly it was just the people around me It was as if there was a group of maybe eight or ten of us who just joined this club together. And so as much as it's a solitary game, I remember it more as a collective, where we would travel together, play together.

7:04There would be a grandmaster who would be walking around the room. He'd play a move against all of us. We'd be trying to scheme against him. And the excitement of testing your mind and growing your friendships at the same time, obviously, it didn't stand a chance once I discovered the beautiful game. and and you know starting to play maybe i was about seven or eight do you still play every now and then you really you don't understand how out of shape you are until you try really trust me mark understands i mean i was just breathing if we're speaking about soccer i thought yeah i wasn't sure if you meant chess mentally still out of shape but you feel less embarrassed but with um I mean, the other day we were playing pickup and I felt something in my lungs.

7:52I didn't even know. You didn't even know you had something there to feel. How do you stretch that? Can I go back? I just want to go back to the Knicks and your speech that you gave in the parade, which I was talking to a Knicks fan today who said it was the greatest speech he had ever heard. And I have heard similar things from a lot of people, both connected to the Knicks and not connected to the Knicks. And for people listening now, it is there on YouTube. I urge you to go and watch it. How important do you think you being genuine was to that speech? And would you have given a speech to that fan base if you hadn't been a Knicks fan?

8:35Because politicians and sport is a very, very fine line to tread. I think you just have to be honest. and I think that that honesty sometimes it can even be an acknowledgement within it and it's the beautiful thing about this moment is it is a moment for every New Yorker there isn't a threshold of how much you have to know to be a part of this, to celebrate this I think the important thing for me was how do we take what these moments typically are when it's a politician standing in front of people at the celebration of a team that has accomplished this momentous thing and bring the focus back to the team as opposed to the self.

9:21And if talking about the self, then understanding yourself as a New Yorker more than as the mayor. And I think for anyone who wants to purely understand this in sporting senses, they also misunderstand what it meant to the city. And we're talking about 53 years worth of memories, worth of hope, worth of heartbreak. And we all know as fans and here also as players, every year you tell yourself it's the year. You both believe it and you also protect yourself from fully letting yourself into it. And to finally let that guard down and believe and know that it's real. It was just a beautiful thing to be able to be one part of it.

10:01On the honesty side of things, you always have to be honest. Are you happy with this World Cup and how it's going from a fan perspective? I am. I'm happy here in New York City. I think that we've made it clear from the beginning we wanted this to be a World Cup for everyone. And especially when you first saw those ticket prices, there was a fear as to how would everyone be able to be a part of this. And so I'm proud of the fact that we secured a thousand tickets at$50. This was part of what I had been running on, saying that we should continue the FIFA precedent of having discounted tickets for local residents.

10:39and that we've also been able to secure making the FanFests, one in each borough, free. When I came into office, they were going to charge for them. We did the work to make sure we took away that cost. And then also to make this an experience of the city. You know, I love that we're here and we're talking about this not at the stadium, but at a restaurant. And it speaks to the fact that we also want this to be a moment for tourists as well as New Yorkers alike to be able to rediscover their own city. We have 900 bars and restaurants who have enrolled into a program where it's a$26 meal deal. And we want that to also be synonymous with this tournament is affordability and everyone being able to join.

11:17How difficult then on the affordability for you was it to square your beliefs and your policies with the transport prices? You know, I think that what you also, I've said this earlier, what we are also coming up against is this tournament means different things to different people. and in sport at large there is this ever-increasing pressure for profit for revenue and that creates attention with those of us who want this to be more of a memory and an experience that is in reach for everyone and i think you know new jersey transit for example has tickets to get to the stadium that are about a hundred dollars yeah and it's a decision that they've made i also empathize with the fact they had to make that decision because they did that so that they wouldn't be running a loss and part of that is a reflection of the host city agreement with FIFA and I think that there's more than enough money that's generated in this World Cup as well as any World Cup for those kinds of costs to be covered so that fans are not the ones trying to have to bridge that deficit.

12:21Will you benefit in the long run from having the World Cup and I say that as someone who's been to every World Cup since 2002. Wow! Every Every World Cup. Yeah, he's that young. And I'm the same age as you. It's incredible. It's astonishing. Two 34 year old guys catching up. Just catching up over a coffee and a water. Same job. Wow. But we often go there and stadiums may be built and infrastructure is put in place. But then how much do they actually benefit in the long run when the circus leaves town? Did you ever read that book Soccernomics? Yeah. Yeah. Really stayed with me. And even if you are a massive Western city with so much success, you still have a lot of problems.

13:05Would you benefit as a city from FIFA being here? I think we will benefit from this summer. I think that, to your point, one thing I'm thankful for is a lot of the stadium infrastructure that is being used for this tournament is not being built specifically for this tournament. It's being repurposed. And that means that there's less of the albatross of the white elephant that hangs over you. One thing we've also tried to do is make sure that any investments we make this summer are lasting investments because we want this to be a moment where when you're at the next World Cup and the next World Cup and the next World Cup, that you can look back at the U.S.

13:42men's national team and see a new player from New York City who got their start at a 24-7 soccer field that we opened this World Cup or got their start because we put the investment in an additional lighting for night games. Can I ask you two quick questions? Because your team up wants you to go and I feel like I'm starting an episode of the West Wing at the moment so two quick questions which are a bit more political how how difficult will having the president here be for the final bearing in mind when he was at game four in in Madison Square Garden it didn't go smoothly yeah I think that the there's a difference in having the president at Madison Square Garden which is immediately surrounded by an area where pedestrians public transit versus the New York New Jersey stadium which is one that has a lot more of a buffer zone, to put it in one way, with the larger public.

14:31So I think that they're very much prepared for that. And I think that we're very excited that we'll be having that final here very soon. And finally, when you won the mayor here, the mayor of Greater Manchester congratulated you in a tweet. He now could become the next prime minister of the UK. I'm interested, as a mayor of a city and I know you can't be president as long as the the rule says they are here do you think it's not even introduced that I know yeah I cannot be the president but what I'm into no but what I'm interested in is do you think the skills required to be a city mayor can easily be transferred nationally I don't think anything comes with ease at at that kind of a level I do think they are very important skills because many people have lost faith in government the place that they earn that faith back or they decide to trust again is at the most local level.

15:24That's where they see what it can look like to have a government that delivers for them. And if you're able to respond to people, whether it's in Greater Manchester or New York City, it is at the heart of what people are looking for for any kind of politics. So I wish him well. I don't think he's an Arsenal supporter though. No, he is. He's an Everton supporter. I mean, at least you can respect that someone has suffered. For a long time. No, but like, I like it when I meet someone who's a fan of a team that hasn't just won and won and won. Well, I'm about to go to the England cricket team. Your Wikipedia says you like cricket.

15:59Is that right? I do. Okay. I mean, but I feel so old now because when I think about the players that I would watch on the England cricket team. Who? Who is your favourite England cricket team? I don't know about favourite, but I just remember the days of like Freddie Flintoff, James Anderson, you know, Kevin Peterson. who apparently, I go to his Twitter and I'm just like, what is going on here? But, you know, those are the... I mean, I even remember the commentators, who obviously were former players, but I just grew up with listening to Nasser Hussain. And it was... Amazing. I mean, these are the seminal...

16:34We all grow up, when you're watching Test Match Cricket, these are the players you remember. Do you really have anything else to do today? I mean, you could... Stay with us. We could talk cricket. We could talk Stuart Broad. We could just come on. Yeah, whatever you would like to talk about. But I wish you're to go into a budget meeting. Can you believe? Rather you than me. Rather you than me. Listen, Zara, thank you so much for joining us. It's been a delight to meet you and a real pleasure. And thank you for all your enthusiasm about all the different sports. It's fascinating. These two are going to kill me because they haven't got a single question in.

17:09So it was great to see you. You know, I'm against monopolies wherever they are and he monopolized them. I know, exactly. I want you to talk about Arsenal with you as well. Can you believe that he did that to you? Next time. Next time. Next time. That was the mayor of New York City, Zoran Mandani, joining us in the New York Diner for the Football Daily Conference.

17:29How impressive was he though? He said he was listening to Nasseri saying, how? Why? Like, why? Like, it was just... Why? So much sport today and all the goals as they go in up and down the league. This is 5 Live Sports. It's all eyes and the lights. And foot to the floor. To bowl him. This is not his stopper. Everyone standing around the 18th green. Overhead kick. That is sensational. He shows to the centre. And down to it. Oh, the right hand. And the former champion is down. It's extraordinary stuff. They've got on a show for us tonight. And he gets on his knees and kisses the turf. 5 Live Sports.

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