Nine injured in shooting in Kansas City, not far from England's World Cup base
Nine adults were injured in a shooting that occurred in the early hours of Saturday, June 6, on Troost Avenue in Kansas City, in the U.S. state of Missouri. According to police statements reported by the Kansas City Star, police officers were called at around 4 a.m. to the 7900 block of Troost Avenue after reports of gunfire, and upon arrival they found a large number of people moving away from the scene. Three women were found with gunshot wounds and taken to hospitals, while police were later informed that six more injured people had arrived at hospitals in the city area in private vehicles.
According to information from police spokesperson Alayna Gonzalez, reported by the local newspaper, all nine injured people are adults, and their injuries were not assessed as life-threatening. The investigation is still ongoing, and by the time the available information was published, police had not reported any arrests or a possible motive for the shooting. So far, it has not been officially confirmed how many people fired shots, whether the incident was connected to an event or gathering nearby, or whether all the injured people were in the same place at the time of the shooting. According to the available information, police continued collecting witness statements and checking the circumstances under which the shooting occurred.
The incident happened before the England team arrived in Kansas City
The shooting attracted wider attention because it happened not far from the area that the England national football team will use during the 2026 World Cup. England players and members of the coaching staff were not in Kansas City at the time of the incident. According to an announcement by The Football Association, the team organized the final preparation phase before the tournament in southern Florida, with matches against New Zealand and Costa Rica before moving to its base in Missouri.
England played a warm-up match against New Zealand in Tampa on June 6 and won 1-0, England Football reported in the team's report. The next warm-up match is scheduled for June 10 against Costa Rica at Inter&Co Stadium in Orlando, also as part of preparations in Florida. After that, according to earlier announcements by The Football Association, the team is due to move to Kansas City, where it will use Swope Soccer Village as its training base during the tournament.
According to the official announcement by The Football Association, Kansas City was selected as the preferred location in January 2025 after an extensive search for a base ahead of the World Cup. The same source states that England will be based in Kansas City during the tournament, while Swope Soccer Village will serve as the main training site. That decision was also confirmed in an announcement by Sporting Kansas City, the club that manages the facility and stated that it is one of its training complexes in historic Swope Park.
Swope Soccer Village as England's official training base
Swope Soccer Village is located in Swope Park, a large urban park in Kansas City, and has been used for professional and developmental football for years. According to Sporting Kansas City data, the complex opened in 2007 and was expanded between 2013 and 2014. It consists of natural and artificial pitches and accompanying spaces for locker rooms, medical care, meetings and team logistics. Sporting Kansas City states that national teams and clubs from the United States and abroad have previously prepared there, including national selections as well as clubs from MLS and other competitions.
According to the official website of the Kansas City organizing committee for the 2026 World Cup, Swope Soccer Village serves as England's training base during the tournament, while other national teams are also based in the wider Kansas City area. The same source states that four official team bases are planned in the region: Argentina uses Sporting KC Performance Center, England uses Swope Soccer Village, the Netherlands uses KC Current Training Center, and Algeria uses Rock Chalk Park in Lawrence. This arrangement confirms that Kansas City's host role includes not only matches at the stadium but also the daily logistics of several national teams.
For national teams taking part in the World Cup, the base is not only a place for training. Sporting Kansas City, in its announcement about the selection of England's base, states that Team Base Camp locations are designed as centers where delegations conduct training, recovery, meetings, coaching staff work and operational preparation for matches. For that reason, ahead of the tournament, special attention is paid to the security of accommodation, traffic routes, protection of training sessions and coordination with local institutions. The shooting on Troost Avenue, according to information available so far, did not occur at the team base itself, but in terms of time and location it opened additional questions about the security environment ahead of the team's arrival.
Kansas City among the American host cities
The 2026 World Cup is being held from June 11 to July 19 in the United States, Canada and Mexico, and FIFA states that it will be the first edition with 48 national teams and a total of 104 matches. Kansas City is one of the American host cities, and matches are played at Kansas City Stadium, the stadium known as GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium, home of the Kansas City Chiefs. According to Visit KC's official schedule, the city will host six matches, including four group-stage matches, one round-of-32 match and one quarter-final.
According to the local schedule published on the Visit KC website, matches in Kansas City are planned as Argentina v Algeria on June 16, Ecuador v Curaçao on June 20, Tunisia v the Netherlands on June 25 and Algeria v Austria on June 27. The same schedule states that Kansas City will host a round-of-32 match on July 3 and a quarter-final on July 11. FIFA shows certain fixtures in its international schedule according to the user's time zone, so dates on global pages may differ from the local match calendar in Kansas City.
England will not play its group matches in Kansas City, but it will have its base there between travel to matches. According to FIFA's schedule and Sporting Kansas City's announcement, England opens its campaign against Croatia on June 17 at Dallas Stadium, then plays Ghana on June 23 at Boston Stadium, and Panama on June 27 at New York New Jersey Stadium. Such a schedule means that the base in Kansas City will serve as an operational center between matches in different American cities, which further emphasizes the importance of logistics and security coordination.
Police are conducting an investigation, while security preparations for the tournament have been underway for months
The Kansas City Missouri Police Department announced back in April that, together with the KC 2026 organization and other security partners, it had carried out an exercise ahead of the FIFA Fan Festival at the National World War I Museum and Memorial location. According to that announcement, the exercise was standard practice for an event of such scale and served to test coordination, communication and the response of different services. Police stated that preparations for the World Cup had been underway for more than a year and a half, including studying security practices from major international sporting events and cooperation with partners outside the police system.
In that context, the shooting on Troost Avenue does not automatically mean a failure in protecting the tournament or national teams, but it comes at a sensitive moment, just days before the start of the biggest football competition. According to the available information, the incident happened before the England team arrived in Kansas City, and there is no official confirmation that it was connected to the World Cup, the team, fans or tournament infrastructure. Still, events like this usually prompt additional risk assessments, especially when they occur in a city that is simultaneously expecting a large number of guests, sporting delegations and media teams.
At the beginning of 2026, KCPD also published data on crime trends in 2025, according to which Kansas City recorded declines in some major categories compared with 2024. Police then stated that homicides fell by 5 percent and nonfatal shootings by 31 percent. Those data provide a broader statistical context, but they do not diminish the seriousness of an individual incident in which nine people were injured. According to the available information, police are continuing the investigation and have not announced that they have identified suspects.
What is known so far about the injured people and the circumstances of the shooting
According to the Kansas City Star report, police first found three women with gunshot wounds and then received notifications about six more people who arrived at hospitals by private transport. All injured people are adults, and police stated that their injuries are not life-threatening. Such wording usually means that a fatal outcome is not expected because of the injuries sustained, but it does not necessarily say anything about the severity of recovery, length of treatment or possible lasting consequences. The identities of the injured people have not been published in the available reports.
The local media outlet also reports the statement of a resident of nearby East 75th Street, who said that she and her husband noticed a bullet hole in the front window of their house after the shooting and a bullet that ended up in the living room. That statement suggests that the shots spread beyond the immediate gathering place, but police have not yet publicly presented a complete reconstruction of the events. According to the available information, it has not been confirmed how many shots were fired, although local posts on social media mentioned a large number of gunshots.
For police, it will be important in the continuation of the investigation to determine whether the shooting broke out after a conflict among individuals, whether it was connected to a larger gathering, who used weapons and whether there are surveillance camera recordings or private phone videos that could help identify suspects. Until those details are officially confirmed, any claim about the motive or perpetrators remains unconfirmed. The Kansas City Star states that police reported the event as a shooting in a crowd of people, not as an incident connected to a football event.
The tournament is approaching, and attention remains on security and logistics
The start of the 2026 World Cup is scheduled for June 11, and in the coming weeks Kansas City expects matches, fan programs and the stay of several national teams. According to official local information, organizers in the city are preparing traffic and security measures for the stadium, fan zone and other key locations. The shooting on Troost Avenue will therefore probably also be viewed through the broader framework of the city's preparations for one of the biggest sporting events Kansas City has hosted so far.
For the England national team, the immediate sporting plan remains tied to the completion of preparations in Florida, the match against Costa Rica on June 10 and then the move to Kansas City. According to official information from The Football Association, the team will prepare there for group matches against Croatia, Ghana and Panama. The shooting investigation continues separately from the sporting program, and until new police announcements, the key confirmed facts remain that nine adults were injured, that their injuries were not life-threatening and that no one has so far been officially reported as arrested in connection with the incident.
Sources:
- Kansas City Star – report on the shooting on Troost Avenue, the number of injured people and police statements (link)
- England Football / The FA – official information on warm-up matches, the stay in Florida and the base in Kansas City (link)
- England Football – men's senior team page with the result of the match against New Zealand and the next match against Costa Rica (link)
- FIFA – official 2026 World Cup schedule and England's group-stage matches (link)
- FIFA – official information on the format and schedule of the 2026 World Cup (link)
- Kansas City FIFA World Cup 2026 – official overview of national team bases in Kansas City (link)
- Sporting Kansas City – announcement on the selection of Swope Soccer Village as England's base (link)
- Visit KC – local schedule of World Cup matches in Kansas City (link)
- Kansas City Missouri Police Department – announcement on the security exercise ahead of the FIFA Fan Festival (link)
- Kansas City Missouri Police Department – annual data on crime trends in 2025 (link)