By Martin Petty
SAN FRANCISCO, June 30 (Reuters) - While some U.S. mayors and politicians talk up their love for soccer in the spotlight of the World Cup, San Francisco's Mayor Daniel Lurie insists he is the real deal.
Lurie gets up early at weekends to watch live English Premier League games and has now attended five World Cups, even lifting the trophy with former Brazil midfielder Gilberto Silva during a promotional tour this year.
Since this year's tournament started, Lurie has been on a whistle-stop
tour of San Francisco's packed fan zones and bars during live matches, sleeves rolled up and mingling with rowdy, boozy fans in pubs festooned with flags.
"I've been a huge soccer fan my whole life," Lurie told Reuters in a San Francisco park with the city's iconic Golden Gate Bridge in the background.
"A lot of people are excited about the World Cup. I kind of live and die soccer," he said, stopping briefly to get an update on the Brazil v Japan game.
"So, for me, this isn't just for this month. I get into soccer all year round."
WORLD CUP GLOBETROTTER
A supporter of Premier League club Leeds United, Lurie, 49, was at the World Cups of 1994, 2010, 2014 and 2022, where he attended five matches in three days.
Soccer's showpiece event is now in his backyard, with six games in the San Francisco Bay Area, the main event on Wednesday when the United States play a last-32 match against Bosnia.
And Lurie's soccer links go beyond fandom.
He is also an investor in 49ers Enterprises, the commercial arm of the San Francisco 49ers NFL team, which became majority owners of Scottish giants Rangers last year after taking over Leeds United in 2023.
"We are now staying up again," he said of Leeds. "We've got a long way to go to get to that top six, to get into European competition, but I believe we can."
Democratic moderate Lurie was elected San Francisco mayor in 2024, campaigning as a hands-on technocrat and political outsider who would rescue his city's declining downtown and fight its fentanyl epidemic and rampant homelessness.
A philanthropist and an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, Lurie spent $10.5 million of his own wealth on his campaign, according to disclosures, with the next biggest contributor his mother, Mimi Haas, a major Levi shareholder, who in 2021 had a net worth of $1.4 billion, according to Forbes.
'LET'S GO USA'
Lurie has become a social media sensation in San Francisco, cultivating a man-of-the-people image with videos of him at farmers markets, officiating same-sex marriages, munching on Mexican chilaquiles and handing out ice creams from a van.
His Instagram account has gone into overdrive during the World Cup, with posts of him sitting on the floor at watch parties and bouncing from pub to pub to see Lionel Messi's double for Argentina against Austria, the U.S. beating Australia, France v Senegal, and Ghana against Panama.
"We're hitting every spot around the city," he said. "It's been electric. Our neighbourhoods have been teeming with fans from around the world."
Helped by the clout of Silicon Valley, Lurie last year famously persuaded U.S. President Donald Trump to call off his planned federal surge of National Guard and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to San Francisco, telling him his city was "on the rise" and ICE agents and troops would derail its recovery.
"We're really proud of where we've come," Lurie said, citing a 30% crime reduction last year and the lowest homicide rate since 1954.
"We still have work to do. And that's where events like the World Cup help us continue that momentum."
Once the World Cup is over, the stadium will be returned to the 49ers, removing a giant tarpaulin sheet covering its commercial name — the Levi's Stadium.
And Lurie hopes the World Cup can provide a lasting legacy.
"We need things to unify us," he said. "The World Cup here in North America and here in the San Francisco Bay Area is doing just that, bringing people together, uniting people. We need more of that."
(Reporting by Martin Petty and Elizabeth Mendez; Editing by Ed Osmond)
