Los Angeles FC to host América in Club World Cup qualifying playoff

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Los Angeles FC to host América in Club World Cup qualifying playoff

2025-05-17 00:25 Last Updated At：00:41

MIAMI (AP) — Los Angeles FC will host Mexico's América on May 31 in their Club World Cup qualification playoff, FIFA finalized on Friday.

The winner will get group-stage games against Chelsea in Atlanta on June 16, then Esperance from Tunisia in Nashville, and Flamengo of Brazil in Orlando.

The play-in game is needed to complete the 32-team lineup of the tournament that starts on June 14 because another Mexican club, León, was removed. León broke tournament integrity rules being in the same ownership group as another Club World Cup entry, Pachuca.

FIFA announced the date and venue 10 days after León’s appeal against expulsion was lost at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland.

LAFC’s 22,000-seat home BMO Stadium — next to the LA Memorial Coliseum and shared with Angel City — will stage the game at 7:30 p.m. local time.

That is several hours after the Champions League final in Munich between Inter Milan and Paris Saint-Germain. Both have qualified for the Club World Cup.

The Club World Cup entry for LAFC or América is worth an initial $9.55 million payment from FIFA for a CONCACAF region team, plus a share of the $1 billion in total prize money based on results at the month-long tournament. It is being played in 11 U.S. cities.

FIFA planned the LAFC-América game in March after first ruling to expel León, which qualified by winning the 2023 CONCACAF Champions League.

FIFA said LAFC would be in the playoff because it was the beaten finalist against León, while América was the next best ranked team in its Club World Cup confederation ranking.

It was unclear why América — one of Mexico’s best-supported teams — is eligible when FIFA rules cap each country at two entries unless it has more than two winners of a continental championship in the four-year qualifying period through 2024.

Mexico already has Pachuca and Monterrey in the tournament that has been heavily promoted by FIFA President Gianni Infantino with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Trump has said he will attend the July 13 final at Met Life Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey to present the gold trophy. It has spent much of the past few weeks in the Oval Office at the White House.

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Video captures Minneapolis immigration arrest in a city on edge after shooting of Renee Good

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Federal agents carrying out immigration arrests in Minnesota's Twin Cities region already shaken by the fatal shooting of a woman rammed the door of one home Sunday and pushed their way inside, part of what the Department of Homeland Security has called its largest enforcement operation ever.

In a dramatic scene similar to those playing out across Minneapolis, agents captured a man in the home just minutes after pepper spraying protesters outside who had confronted the heavily armed federal agents. Along the residential street, protesters honked car horns, banged on drums and blew whistles in attempts to disrupt the operation.

Video of the clash taken by The Associated Press showed some agents pushing back protesters while a distraught woman later emerged from the house with a document that federal agents presented to arrest the man. Signed by an immigration officer, the document — unlike a warrant signed by a judge — does not authorize forced entry into a private residence. A warrant signed by an immigration officer only authorizes arrest in a public area.

Immigrant advocacy groups have conducted extensive “know-your-rights” campaigns urging people not to open their doors unless agents have a court order signed by a judge.

But within minutes of ramming the door in a neighborhood filled with single-family homes, the handcuffed man was led away.

More than 2,000 immigration arrests have been made in Minnesota since the enforcement operation began at the beginning of December, said Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told Fox News on Sunday that the administration would send additional federal agents to Minnesota to protect immigration officers and continue enforcement.

The Twin Cities — the latest target in President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement campaign — is bracing for what is next after 37-year-old Renee Good was shot and killed by an immigration officer on Wednesday.

“We’re seeing a lot of immigration enforcement across Minneapolis and across the state, federal agents just swarming around our neighborhoods,” said Jason Chavez, a Minneapolis city councilmember. “They’ve definitely been out here.”

Chavez, the son of Mexican immigrants who represents an area with a growing immigrant population, said he is closely monitoring information from chat groups about where residents are seeing agents operating.

People holding whistles positioned themselves in freezing temperatures on street corners Sunday in the neighborhood where Good was killed, watching for any signs of federal agents.

More than 20,000 people have taken part in a variety of trainings to become “observers” of enforcement activities in Minnesota since the 2024 election, said Luis Argueta, a spokesperson for Unidos MN, a local human rights organization .

“It’s a role that people choose to take on voluntarily, because they choose to look out for their neighbors,” Argueta said.

The protests have been largely peaceful, but residents remained anxious. On Monday, Minneapolis public schools will start offering remote learning for the next month in response to concerns that children might feel unsafe venturing out while tensions remain high.

Many schools closed last week after Good’s shooting and the upheaval that followed.

While the enforcement activity continues, two of the state’s leading Democrats said that the investigation into Good's shooting death should not be overseen solely by the federal government.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and U.S. Sen. Tina Smith said in separate interviews Sunday that state authorities should be included in the investigation because the federal government has already made clear what it believes happened.

“How can we trust the federal government to do an objective, unbiased investigation, without prejudice, when at the beginning of that investigation they have already announced exactly what they saw — what they think happened," Smith said on ABC’s "This Week."

The Trump administration has defended the officer who shot Good in her car, saying he was protecting himself and fellow agents and that Good had “weaponized” her vehicle.

Todd Lyons, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, defended the officer on Fox News Channel’s “The Sunday Briefing.”

"That law enforcement officer had milliseconds, if not short time to make a decision to save his life and his other fellow agents,” he said.

Lyons also said the administration’s enforcement operations in Minnesota wouldn't be needed “if local jurisdictions worked with us to turn over these criminally illegal aliens once they are already considered a public safety threat by the locals.”

The killing of Good by an ICE officer and the shooting of two people by federal agents in Portland, Oregon, led to dozens of protests in cities across the country over the weekend, including New York, Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Oakland, California.

Contributing were Associated Press journalists Giovanna Dell’Orto in Minneapolis; Thomas Strong in Washington; Bill Barrow in Atlanta; Christopher Weber in Los Angeles; and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio.