Behind the wild scenes of the wild 1994 World Cup draw in Las Vegas

The World Cup was coming to America. The year was 1993, and FIFA was placing soccer’s crown jewel event in a country where the sport was not king for the first time in history. The goal was clear: to make the U.S. audience fall in love with the sport through a warm embrace of star power, scale and spectacle. 

Act 1? The 1994 FIFA World Cup Final Draw, an event that determined how the field would be set for the competition.

The celebrities came out in full force, headlined by the aura of Robin Williams, who turned his brief cameo into a comedy set. Behind the scenes, Pelé was snubbed, Sepp Blatter stumbled through a complicated draw, and a twist in the group pairings changed the trajectory of men’s soccer in the United States.

Thirty-two years later, as the event returns to the United States, FIFA is once more leaning on star power to make the draw a spectacle. This time, sports icons like Shaquille O’Neal, Tom Brady and Aaron Judge will stand in for Mario Andretti, Mary Lou Retton and Evander Holyfield — a new cast of American sports legends tasked with bringing the same glitz and attention to soccer’s biggest stage.

Through conversations with those who lived it — former FIFA and U.S. Soccer power brokers, as well as a mix of celebrities and former sports stars — this is the story of how a glittering Las Vegas gala in 1993 became a turning point for American soccer.

‘We wanted to call as much attention to it as we could.’

Former U.S. Soccer president Alan Rothenberg emphasized that attention was non-negotiable as the United States prepared to host the World Cup for the first time. Tasked with organizing the tournament, he knew it would never be an ordinary World Cup. For the first time in decades, FIFA was staging the event in a country that had yet to embrace the world’s most popular sport fully. As a result, the World Cup would shift from a celebration in a soccer-loving nation to a spectacle aimed at boosting the sport’s growth in another part of the world. A regionalized approach was a logical way to attract American audiences, even for something as procedural as the World Cup draw in December 1993, where qualified teams would learn their schedules and the basic structure of the bracket.

“Since the World Cup was so new to the United States, there was concern about how much interest there would be, and so, we [were] determined to make it a must-see event ’cause we knew Americans love a big event,” said Rothenberg about holding the event in Las Vegas. “Rather than trying to convert people into suddenly becoming soccer fans out of nowhere, really, we were pitching it as a must-see event. And so, we had done one thing after another involving celebrities and press conferences, and [the goal was receiving] as much attention as you could get, and so, by the time you’re in December of ’93, I think everybody was certainly aware this was a big event.”

Inspired by the draw four years earlier in Rome, where Oscar winner Sophia Loren and singers Gianna Nannini and Luciano Pavarotti were present, an eclectic mix of dignitaries, soccer stars, accomplished athletes and celebrities convened at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Rothenberg described the events as a “three-ring circus.” A day before the draw, an expo was held to introduce Major League Soccer to prospective corporate partners ahead of the league’s inaugural season in 1996, as well as a gala featuring Smokey Robinson and James Brown performing “Living In America.”

The lone televised element, though, was the draw itself. Organizers pulled out all the stops the night of Dec. 19, 1993.

The event brought together soccer royalty, including Dutch Ballon d’Or winner Marco van Basten, German World Cup legend Franz Beckenbauer, England World Cup winner Bobby Charlton and Michelle Akers, who was two years removed from leading the United States women’s national team to victory in the inaugural Women’s World Cup.

That was the undercard. To tap into the Americana of it all from the ’90s, FIFA enlisted Dick Clark and Oscar winner Faye Dunaway as hosts, pairing paired them with pop culture icons from other beloved American sports stars — rOlympic gold medalist Mary Lou Retton, supermodel Carol Alt, Andretti, Holyfield and Williams — creating one of the most star-studded spectacles FIFA had ever staged.

The glamour alone made the 1994 World Cup draw memorable, but as influential figures from various entertainment sectors gathered, the televised event was just one part of an occasion that also had its fair share of off-camera drama.

Ahead of Friday’s 2026 FIFA World Cup Final Draw in Washington D.C., CBS Sports spoke with some of the key figures involved in the pageantry-filled 1994 process. 

Controversy over snubbing Pelé

“There’s nothing like being part of something historic or knowing somebody who was historic,” said Alt, a prominent supermodel and actress during the 1980s. “That, I feel, is part of the perks of being in the entertainment business, is the amazing opportunities you get, the great people you meet, right? It’s part of the lure, of the risk that you take when you go into this business.”

The historic nature of World Cup coming to America for the first time was ultimately why U.S. Soccer and FIFA had no trouble booking entertainers for the draw, even if their soccer fandom was nonexistent. Alt said her exposure to the game was mostly growing up with Roy Messing, a goalkeeper in the since-disbanded NASL and the younger brother of one-time U.S. men’s national team shot-stopper Shep. Alt was a big sports fan, though: “I married two hockey players and I own a hockey team, I own part of the [NHL’s] Vegas Golden Knights.” She also really wanted to meet Andretti, a prominent auto racing champion in the 1960s and 1970s.

“I had grown up knowing his name,” Alt recalled. “I actually went over to his room to say hello. He was very quiet. It was funny because he was very quiet, very shy. I said, ‘I know these people in Formula 1,’ and we started chatting about the different people that we knew, and he was lovely. … I think he didn’t understand why I was excited to meet him.”

Andretti, meanwhile, had his sights set on Pelé. He hoped to run into him again at the Las Vegas Convention Center after previously meeting the three-time World Cup winner when he filmed an Atari commercial with Pelé and six-time NBA MVP Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1981.

“The only one that I knew because we did a commercial together, I think a couple years before, was Pelé,” Andretti said, “but he had that issue and so he was in the audience and I didn’t get to see him later.”

“That issue” was a well-documented feud between Pelé and then-FIFA president João Havelange, a fellow countryman. The disagreement was highlighted by a lawsuit Pelé filed against Havelange’s son-in-law, Ricardo Teixeira, then the president of the Brazilian Football Confederation. Pelé claimed his television company had the highest bid to broadcast the 1994 World Cup in Brazil but lost the contract because they refused to pay a bribe to Teixeira. 

Havelange refused to have Pelé on stage during the draw, denying the audience a glimpse of a soccer player whose star shone so brightly that he was recognized by name — even in the United States. The decision left many aghast. Cameroon international Roger Milla said it made him “very sad,” while then-Germany coach Berti Vogts said he was speechless following a 3-0 win over the USMNT the day before the World Cup draw. Fans also held a banner at Stanford Stadium that day reading, “Pelé We Stand With You.”

It threw a wrench in the organizers’ plans, though Rothenberg did have a backup plan in place.

“Havelange forbade Pelé from being part of the procedure,” Rothenberg said. “Otherwise, he would have been up on the dais participating in the draw. On the other hand, we wanted to showcase Pelé as much as possible, so, much to the chagrin of President Havelange, after everybody was seated, just before we were going to start, we marched Pelé down the center to a seat we had reserved for him in the front so his presence was clearly felt even though he wasn’t up on the dais.”

The feud between Havelange and Pelé reportedly reached a detente four months later in Trinidad and Tobago at the Concacaf Convention. It escalated years later — after Pelé became Brazil’s minister of sport — over the ex-player’s proposals to restructure soccer in the country. Havelange threatened Brazil with expulsion from the 1998 World Cup, leading Pelé to call the FIFA president a “dictator,” the back-and-forth being an unhappy memory for many.

“It’s a sad story,” recalled Blatter, Havelange’s successor, himself the focus of unrelated scandals. “Pelé, the greatest soccer player in history, sat in the hall but was not allowed to play a role. And even sadder is the reason why: João Havelange, the Brazilian patriarch with Belgian roots, had a problem with dark-skinned people. It must be said clearly and unequivocally: I have realized now that he was kind of a racist.”

U.S. cries foul over confusing draw procedure

Amid the revolving door of celebrities on stage, Blatter was the permanent fixture. He was FIFA’s secretary general, tasked with walking the audience through the draw procedure. This was years before he succeeded Havelange as FIFA president in 1998 and resigned in disgrace in 2015 as a defendant in corruption cases in Switzerland. Blatter’s delivery was clunky and hard to follow, perhaps because the procedure itself was not particularly straightforward.

The tried-and-true fundamentals of pulling balls from bowls to form randomized groups of four remained intact, as did the necessary regulations that ensured non-European teams from the same continent were not placed in the same groups.

Instead, the 1994 World Cup draw played out like an elaborate riddle. Rather than moving alphabetically through Groups A to F, Blatter shuffled colors in an arbitrary order — green, orange, white, black, pink, blue — while juggling rule exceptions that sowed confusion and, as Rothenberg claimed, led to a rare misstep.

“If it had been conducted the way they did a mock draw the night before — to make sure everyone knew how to proceed — we would not have had Colombia in our group,” he said.

Colombia — Pelé’s surprise pick to win the 1994 World Cup, given his allegiance — went undefeated during qualification, cementing its status as the team everyone hoped to avoid in the draw. That was especially true for the host nation, as the Americans were labeled as plucky underdogs, preparing for just their second trip to the World Cup in 40 years.

Colombia ended up in the USMNT’s group thanks to a quirky draw rule that guaranteed the first South American or African team in Pot 2 would face the host. It was an effort to keep Mexico out of that slot. According to Rothenberg, things did not go as planned. 

“I don’t remember exactly the way it was working, but he reaches into a pot and then moves it along to put it in a particular group. [If he had] reached in the pot and done it the way the mock was, we would not have had Colombia,” he explained. “For some reason, he changed it on the spot. I don’t know if it was intentional or he just screwed up, and honestly, I don’t remember exactly the details other than the fact that had it been conducted the way I thought it was going to be conducted, we would not have been [playing] Colombia.”

Rothenberg watched the draw alongside several members of the United States’ 1994 World Cup team, unhappy at what had taken place.

“I was so livid. I was like a drunken sailor swearing, saying, ‘Oh my God, we just got screwed,'” Rothenberg recalled. “[The players] were upset about Colombia. I don’t think they realized they changed it while doing it, but they saw the result of Colombia, and I guess it worried them like it worried me.”

Tony Meola, captain and goalkeeper of the ’94 team, was on stage during the draw, and therefore, he missed Rothenberg’s outburst. He believed the discrepancy stemmed from how the teams were divided ahead of the draw. Though FIFA rankings were introduced in December 1992, they were considered too new for the 1994 draw. Pots 2-4 were arranged by geography, placing Colombia with South American and African teams. The moment Blatter drew Colombia, the U.S. delegation was thrown into disarray.

“Because of the way the ranking system went, and remember, Colombia was ranked [high], some people picked them to win the World Cup, so they were pretty high, but there was no computer system,” Meola said on a recent episode of Call It What You Want, a CBS Sports Golazo Network podcast. “Now, you wouldn’t make that mistake because there’s a computer. … There was none of that [back then]. It was like they knew all the things, but there wasn’t anyone to really tell ’em. So when it came out, Sepp Blatter just said, ‘Colombia in that group.'”

Blatter denied any wrongdoing.

“It wasn’t an accident,” Blatter said, “but Rothenberg got something mixed up. The dress rehearsal had nothing to do with the official draw.”

By the end of the draw, the Americans were staring at a near worst-case scenario: Romania and Switzerland joined Colombia to form a brutal Group A — all three teams were among the top 20 of FIFA’s nascent rankings by the time the tournament kicked off. Advancing to the Round of 16 was no sure thing, which was far from ideal for a team hoping to be taken seriously on the global stage.

Six months later, though, the plucky underdogs handled their uphill battle, clawing through a brutal Group A, highlighted by a stunning 2-1 upset win over Colombia in Pasadena, California, to seal a historic knockout berth. 

“It also taught me a lesson in retrospect,” Rothenberg said. “You predict all you want from the draw, but you got to play the matches. Because we ended up in a group with Colombia, Switzerland and Romania, and we figured, ‘OK, we’re going to lose to Colombia, but if we can get a tie and a win between Romania and Switzerland, then we’d be fine.’

“Well, as it turned out, we lost to Romania. We did tie Switzerland, but then in an upset, everybody was shocked that we beat Colombia, the team that I was really angry that was in our group. So, as I say, that taught me a lesson. You can do all the scoping and predicting … [on] the day, you got to get out there on the pitch and play.”

Sepp Blatter becomes Robin Williams’ punchline

The glitziest part of the show was saved for last as Akers, Andretti, Alt, Lou Retton, actor Beau Bridges and artist Peter Max came onto the stage to complete the draw alongside Blatter, who invited Williams as a special guest. The comedian stole the spotlight in trademark fashion, pointing at the electronic board showing the draw results and calling it “the world’s biggest keno game” as he made his entrance.

Williams brought an entirely different energy to the proceedings, especially since Blatter had mostly commanded the stage after Clark and Dunaway opened the show.

“What was interesting about it is the fact that I think I felt like I was probably the only one that actually understood soccer,” said Andretti, who spent the first 15 years of his life in Italy. “What was interesting is that Robin Williams is one that I remember clearly because of all these jokes and everything that he would come up with, and it showed …  a little bit of his ignorance.”

Williams’ improv skills were fully on display as he made joke after joke at Blatter’s expense, poking fun at his mannerisms and accent. He spent much of his time on stage reminding people about the FIFA executive’s name, at one point saying, “I met you just in the men’s room a minute ago!” Alt, a longtime friend of Williams, said the jokes were a last-minute addition.

“Robin didn’t let that one go,” Alt said. “I remember being backstage when they said, ‘Blatter’s going to do this,’ and of course, Robin started in right away, and I was like, ‘Oh, my God.’ The guy wasn’t even there. His name was just mentioned … you could see Robin already formulating. He started throwing out [jokes] and seeing who laughed at what kind of thing, so it was like I knew it was going to happen. You don’t know how people are going to take stuff like that.”

Alt said Blatter stiffened as Williams continued with the jokes at his expense, an act that easily became the most memorable part of the event.

“He was brilliant,” Rothenberg said. “That was [for] the whole world to see. The gala was a great event for the people that were there, but it wasn’t on television, and it was definitely the standout event. I know about these other things, but the public that was paying attention, if you ask them what stood out from the draw for ’94, it would be Robin Williams.”

More than 30 years later, Blatter has no hard feelings for Williams.

“It was a pleasure and an honor — even though he made fun of my name,” Blatter said. “But the roles were clearly defined: Robin was the star guest, I was the show master.”

The full recording of that glittering Vegas spectacle is buried on YouTube, uploaded by a random user. It has barely scraped together 50,000 views in four years — a forgotten artifact of a night that delivered on its glamorous promise but boasted equal measures of chaos, controversy and comedy.

It was an entertaining start to a journey that led the United States to its first knockout berth in modern history. Wafting through all the digital cobwebs, that evening in December 1993, still holds a unique place in American soccer lore.