When a lifelong soccer fan who also happens to be an Episcopal priest volunteers as a host city ambassador for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, it should surprise no one that he sees the role as a ministry.
In each of the tournament’s 16 host cities, ambassadors work in small teams, welcoming visitors, answering questions, handing out stickers and other World Cup-branded items, and creating a hospitable environment for fans from around the world.
The Rev. Asa David Coulson, rector of Grace Church in Nutley, signed up for 10 shifts of seven to eight hours each, serving both in New York City and at New Jersey locations such as the Hoboken NJ Transit Terminal, where he greets fans traveling to matches at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford. He sees it as a blend of his religious calling and his favorite sport.
“Talking with my peers who are on my team, almost all of us are doing it because we think it’s very important right now for people in the United States, as citizens, to be hospitable, to kind of counterbalance some of the inhospitality that’s happening,” Coulson said.
“Everyone who I’ve talked to about that has said that same sort of thing, that, ‘I just wanted to make sure that people knew they were welcome here,’ because we all had a fear that maybe people wouldn’t feel welcomed.”
Coulson says he has been a soccer fan “forever.”
“I played through high school, and then I wasn’t good enough in college,” he said. “I’m a season ticket holder for the Philadelphia Union, to the chagrin of the Red Bulls fans in the congregation, I’m sure. I’m also an official supporter of the U.S. national teams, both men’s and women’s, and I have a British Premier League team that I like too.
“I also like LEGO quite a bit,” he continued, “and they made sets for the World Cup, and I have some of those that I’m putting together when I’m watching matches.
“So, yeah, you could say I’m a little bit of a soccer fan.”
Coulson first got the idea to volunteer at the World Cup while watching the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics.
“I noticed they had volunteers, right? And so because I knew the World Cup was coming, and I like soccer, I googled how to do that, and I found the host committee and applied, so that’s how I started the process.”
The process of being selected as a host city ambassador was long and thorough, including in-person interviews, multiple training sessions both in-person and online, and a background check. Of roughly a million applicants across all host cities, about 65,000 were selected.
“There was a lot of pre-work for almost six months prior to the tournament starting,” Coulson said. “You had to be willing to do it and dedicated to completing your online modules and going into the city.”
While the ambassadors aren’t paid, there are compensations. “We have a whole uniform, actually,” Coulson said, that identifies them as ambassadors. “They give us two pair of pants, four shirts, a pair of shorts, a pair of shoes, three pairs of socks, a jacket, a hat – all brand-new Adidas stuff, and we get to keep that.”
The ambassadors also receive a small stipend to cover lunches, and a code to purchase NJ Transit tickets when traveling to and from their assigned locations.
Coulson relishes his interactions with other soccer fans.
“One of the things they told us in training is that people would want to take pictures with us, and I was like, why would anybody want to take a picture with us? But tons of people have,” he said.
He and his team were able to provide substantial help to one lost fan, who mistakenly came to New York for a match that was being held in Philadelphia.
“We helped him get on a train to Philly,” he said, “because he was otherwise not going to be able to do it.”
Some of the soccer fans he’s met are very interesting characters, such as the four Brazilians who call themselves Dinos na Copa, Portuguese for “Dinos at the World Cup.” In addition to wearing the Brazilian team colors of green and yellow, three of the four wear inflatable costumes that make them look like they are riding green dinosaurs.
“It turned out they actually follow [the Brazilian team] everywhere they go,” he said. “They’ve got pictures on their Instagram and TikTok, and little stories from them going to Brazil matches all over the world. So we got to talk with them some about their experiences, not just at this World Cup, but at other games.”
And, he notes, sometimes it’s the little things, such as handing out World Cup stickers to kids, who receive them with joy.
Coulson recalled telling one of his interviewers that he is an Episcopal priest. “And I said, ‘I actually feel like this is almost an extension of that, being welcoming and being hospitable and inviting people to join in kind of this movement and this thing that’s bigger than themselves, and to see even in our differences, kind of the commonalities we have beyond countries and stuff, that at the end of the day we’re all cheering, and that’s what I like.’”
He adds that a collect from that day’s Morning Prayer captured what he sees in the World Cup experience. It begins: “O God, you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth, and sent your blessed Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near.”
“That hit me,” he said, “because that’s kind of what we’re acknowledging and honoring.”
