World Cup final health warning as New York residents advised to stay indoors

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17 July 2026

In what seems like far from ideal

World Cup news

, a health warning has been issued to New York residents ahead of this Sunday’s final between

Spain

and

Argentina

Wildfire smoke has affected the air in the New York and New Jersey area, prompting officials to advise people there to stay indoors and avoid spending too much time outside if possible.

That’s according to a report from

BBC Sport

, which suggested that so far it didn’t seem bad enough to be affecting the players as they’ve taken part in training ahead of the

World Cup

final.

Still, this could be a real issue for the

final as we don’t know what the effects could be for players and fans who will be spending a lot of time outdoors in these unsafe conditions.

The BBC’s report explains that there have been some other games going on during this period, with the poor air quality and heat proving a bad combination.

There was a National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) match between Gotham FC and Washington Spirit on Wednesday night, with regulations mandating that the players took two breaks per half.

Washington Spirit’s Trinity Rodman spoke about the conditions afterwards and said that the game probably shouldn’t have gone ahead, as the players were clearly affected.

“Not to make excuses at all, but I think on both sides we were all like, ‘another break, another break, another break’,” Rodman said.

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There is no suggestion for now that the

final won’t go ahead as planned.

Argentina take on

in New York on Sunday, and the BBC’s report states that the air quality should improve by later today anyway.

The only disruption we can expect is the somewhat unusual extended half time break, which will be 25 minutes instead of the standard 15 minutes.

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