Vancouver mayor wants to put $5M to help land FIFA 2026 World Cup

By Denise Wong and Martin MacMahon and Kurtis Doering

Posted March 15, 2022 1:48 pm.

Last Updated March 15, 2022 2:42 pm.

Vancouver’s mayor wants to put millions of dollars towards B.C.’s bid to host FIFA World Cup games in 2026, but it’s not a guarantee yet.

“Our starting point for the 2026 World Cup was for the event to come at no additional cost,” Mayor Kennedy Stewart said Monday. “But given the tremendous opportunity we have to support the province and our hard-hit tourism sector … I will recommend to Council that we triple our 2015 World Cup investment and commit up to $5 million in contributions to secure 2026 matches for B.C.”

Some of the $5 million would be cash, but Stewart says at least some will also be in-kind services such as equipment and labour.

“It could be no in-kind and all cash, depending on what the needs are,” he said. “That will be decided by the partners, as we go forward. But there would be, in my mind, no more than $5 million in cash from the city to help host these games … I think that’s a reasonable amount.”

Stewart says hosting games is a “very real possibility.”

“You will see later this month or early April … if everything goes right, Vancouver on the list of host cities,” he added.

“That’s so exciting for this city. You think about coming out of COVID … just how tough it’s been on Downtown businesses. If you think bringing a 30-day World Cup event to this city with a fan zone where everybody can watch, with all kinds of events connected, with dignitaries … it’ll be the most exciting place on the planet.”

“Lots of other things would be a higher priority for me” – Coun. Jean Swanson

However, it appears Stewart will not have the support of all council members with this proposal.

“If I had $5 million to spend, I think I’d rather spend it on helping people who are homeless or building child-care centres,” said COPE City Coun. Jean Swanson.

“If the province wants it, they have the ability to have a progressive tax, where they can tax lower-income people at a lower rate than higher-income people,” Swanson said. “If they want FIFA, they should pay for it.”

Meanwhile, Green Coun. Adriane Carr is supportive of the bid to host games, calling it an exciting opportunity for Vancouver.

“I think it does stimulate the economy. We don’t have to build any housing. It would be the hotels, and the hotels in our city have been so hard-hit by COVID,” she said.

She says there’s also a lot of value in people looking forward to an exciting event after two years of a pandemic.

(Pending council support). It’s a U-turn after B.C. initially expressed hesitation due to FIFA’s demand for what has been described as a “blank cheque.”

— Martin MacMahon (@martinmacmahon) March 15, 2022

Last summer, Stewart said he was excited about the idea of hosting games in Vancouver, saying the city is “very good at hosting events,” citing the Olympics and Rugby Sevens, and the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup as examples.

In February, the province said it was in “active discussions” to put B.C. — and Vancouver — into consideration to host FIFA 2026 World Cup games.

B.C. Premier John Horgan said Feb. 11 if he was given a choice between Vancouver hosting World Cup soccer games in 2016 and getting the 2030 Winter Olympics, he would go for the “beautiful game” of soccer.

“If we can have a marquee event as part of a North American World Cup, with the Canadian team doing so well right now and people’s attention heightened on that, I would prefer to do that,” John Horgan told Drex on JACK FM.

Horgan has said B.C. needs to kickstart its tourism economy.

“We have the lowest unemployment in the country, but still … if we can invite the world to Vancouver in 2026, that’s a big boon for the hospitality sector — hotels, restaurants, tourism,” he said.