2026 WC Bid?

[Joe MacCarthy]

Getting back on topic a bit, does anyone know where the old Mickey Mouse CSA World Cup bid pdf is. I may have a copy but can't upload it. With all the new stadiums being built and under consideration it would be interesting to compare the situation now to what they envisioned then.

[CanadianSoccerFan]

The women don't care where they play but the men won't play outside of BMO. That might be one small reason that more people across this country can identify with the women than the men.

Over the years I've heard plenty of whining from the women's team about playing on plastic.

[Tuscan]

Roger, I'm pretty sure the CSA is going to move forward with the decision to bid on the World Cup, so all that matters is if you're going to take an active role in helping us win or if you're going to remain a stick in the mud and whine about it.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Over the years I've heard plenty of whining from the women's team about playing on plastic.

But they do

[Redcoatsforever]

You know what? Let's can all the ****ing "it won't happen because of XXXXXX" bull**** and make it ****ing happen. We're one of the best countries on the planet, but our football foot print is exceedingly small. One of FIFA's main missions is to "Take world-class football action and passion at all levels to every corner of the planet", which has been done with us so far at smaller levels, but never with the men's World Cup. There is ZERO reason why we should not be able to not only put in a solid bid, but also host an all-out successful World Cup.

As Voyageurs we want the game to grow within Canada. The ultimate way to make that happen is through hosting the World Cup. Oh, the work in making sure the Boys In Red have sell out, pro-Canadian crowds will be harder than we'll anticipate, but we can do it. As a good friend of mine always says before his band plays a show, "time to cut the **** and start the pit." We need to drop the No attitude and up the Yes attitude. Call your provincial association and tell them they need to get their asses in line with the CSA's potential World Cup bid and that you want games hosted in your city. I sure as hell am going to do everything I can to make sure that a group is hosted in Saskatchewan.

+1. Couldn't say it better.

All new CFL stadia are required to be expandable to 40,000. The 1994 world cup was played mostly in NFL stadiums that shipped in grass surfaces to be layed over the artificial turf. Barring some massive climate shift between now and 2026, there will be no shortage of sod in North America in the summer to cut up and ship in. We have three stadiums in this country over 40,000 now.

We need to have stadia seating roughly 60,000 for the matches from the round of 16 to the semis and the consolation final, and one stadium seating 80,000 for the final. I know a lot of people in Toronto don't really like them, but isn't one of the Ford brothers trying to get an NFL-sized football stadium into the city? That could easily be built in a way to fit the World Cup final.

[Roger miller]

Roger, I'm pretty sure the CSA is going to move forward with the decision to bid on the World Cup, so all that matters is if you're going to take an active role in helping us win or if you're going to remain a stick in the mud and whine about it.

But i am not whining about it. Can you point out where in this thread I have whined about it? I really hope we do get to host the WC. I have always felt that way. I just dont agree building CFL stadiums makes us shoe in for the WC. If we build proper stadiums we have chance. We can do it and i hope that we do it. But we have to build proper facilities and not tell the world to play in a CFL stadium with platic pitch and all. Build a soccer stadium and then put a CFL team in it.

[Trillium]

There should be no bid.. for the following reasons.

1. CSA does not have a half million to million to put into bid and support the 2015 Womens World Cup that we have.

2. Any bid is going to be joke and the money spent will just be sending folks on junkets to expensive hotels.

3. We do not have any serious committement by muncipalitys to build second stadia that are soccer specific and capable of having a legacy use in at least four of the necessary venues.

So if you want to do a bid get eight city's to commit land now, to build the stadia and put it in official plans

Then get feds and provinces to promise funding for 80% of cost of stadia... thats probably 400 millioin per stadia times eight or 3.2 billion dollars.

Then you can make a bid after we prove we can draw fans and sellout the women's World Cup.

[Joe MacCarthy]

2. Any bid is going to be joke and the money spent will just be sending folks on junkets to expensive hotels.

By the same token, we shouldn't bother playing the rest of the WCQ, we'll never get out of the hex and the whole thing will be a big joke and a waste of money.

Seeing as I oversee a thread on new stadiums in Canada, I'll use this as a learning opportunity. Aside from the field/pitch exactly what exactly is the difference between a soccer and CFL stadium. I'd like to know.

Can somebody else please deal with the rest of the defeatist garbage posted above. I really don't want to monopolize the thread again.

[Redcoatsforever]

By the same token, we shouldn't bother playing the rest of the WCQ, we'll never get out of the hex and the whole thing will be a big joke and a waste of money.

Seeing as I oversee a thread on new stadiums in Canada, I'll use this as a learning opportunity. Aside from the field/pitch exactly what exactly is the difference between a soccer and CFL stadium. I'd like to know.

Can somebody else please deal with the rest of the defeatist garbage posted above. I really don't want to monopolize the thread again.

Well, to repeat what I said earlier about the CFL stadia: The 1994 world cup was played mostly in NFL stadiums that shipped in grass surfaces to be layed over the artificial turf. Barring some massive climate shift between now and 2026, there will be no shortage of sod in North America in the summer to cut up and ship in.

We currently have 4 stadia over 50,000 seats:

Stade Olympique - Montréal (66,308)

Commonwealth Stadium - Edmonton (60,081)

BC Place - Vancouver (54,500)

Rogers Centre - Toronto (52,230)

As of 2013:

Investors Group Field - Winnipeg (33,422/40,000 with expansion)

So, as of 2013 we'll be just short of having enough stadia to host the group stage, we'll need to find a way to get two more stadia with capacity of 60,000 or greater in order to host the knock-out rounds, and then we'll need one more stadium seating 80,000 or more for the final. considering that 80,000 is greater than 60,000 the finals stadium would obviously be available for other matches in the tournament, and considering too that we have two stadia over 60,000 already, that means we need only two more stadia for the knock-out rounds, and three more stadia for the group stage.

Does anyone have seating figures for the new stadia in Ottawa and Hamilton that include attendance figures?

[Joe MacCarthy]

Does anyone have seating figures for the new stadia in Ottawa and Hamilton that include attendance figures?

Just a small correction, Edmonton will be 52000 with the new seats (completed next year)

Hamilton 22500 (expandable to 40000)

Ottawa 24000 (expandable to 40000)

Regina (proposed 33000 - funding should be finalized end of July) (expandable to 40000)

Calgary (Flames have increased percentage of ownership in Stamps and are looking at new arena and stadium)

[Redcoatsforever]

Just a small correction, Edmonton will be 52000 with the new seats (completed next year)

Hamilton 22500 (expandable to 40000)

Ottawa 24000 (expandable to 40000)

Regina (proposed 33000 - funding should be finalized end of July) (expandable to 40000)

Calgary (Flames have increased percentage of ownership in Stamps and are looking at new arena and stadium)

So we're in even better shape than I claimed?

[Joe MacCarthy]

So we're in even better shape than I claimed?

In a word... yes. You must pay the New Canadian stadiums thread a visit. 30,000 views can't be wrong.

[xcalibre]

The US will get it again before we do, which means we'll have to wait another 16 years or so after that after the other continents have a turn. Even if we could, there's no way the CSA in its present guise could pull off a successful bidding, organization and planning process.

[Joe MacCarthy]

You can't make generalized statements like that. England was the frontrunner for 2018 and the US for 2022, did they get it. Nooooo. Who knows what FIFA corruption and politics will do. What if the world has another hate-on for America period? Do you think they'll win if they're a terrorist target?

Man alive, there's some real loser (or as the kids say looser) attitudes here. We're a G8 country not some banana republic, we have the means, we need the will.

Yes, the CSA will be alone in the planning, but it's easy, you just go to the FIFA World Cup Planning blog and then surf over to the Download A Stadium Design and Floorplan" website. God, why do I bother?

Any forward thinkers out there, please help. Correct that, any thinkers out there? I know you're out there, don't be shy.

[AvroArrow]

Out of curiosity, where would the funding for all of these stadium improvements or new stadium construction come from? I can't see the federal government, with its current mandate of tackling deficits and cutting spending, suddenly opening up the public wallet for new sports infrastructure. Corporate sponsorship may reduce the costs somewhat, but I can't see a company/companies financing the construction of a stadium that may not have the fan base to fill that stadium after the WC crowd leaves.

[elmateo]

Mexico, Argentina and Colombia I think would be 'rivals' in a 2026 competition to host - 12 years after Brazil is sufficient space for the South American cups and I also think that FIFA will be looking at holding a tournament in a football crazy country after Qatar. The interest would be related to the visual affect of having locals engaging in the tournament - which is also related to the point that one of FIFA's main interests is time zone coverage. Qatar won because of its time-zone reach for new television markets (whatever TV will be in 2022).

It is not that I don't want to be part of a World Cup in Canada, but understanding what the potential obsticales would be includes thinking as FIFA does and where other competition and why might come from.

[adrenaline11]

Mexico, Argentina and Colombia I think would be 'rivals' in a 2026 competition to host - 12 years after Brazil is sufficient space for the South American cups and I also think that FIFA will be looking at holding a tournament in a football crazy country after Qatar. The interest would be related to the visual affect of having locals engaging in the tournament - which is also related to the point that one of FIFA's main interests is time zone coverage. Qatar won because of its time-zone reach for new television markets (whatever TV will be in 2022).

It is not that I don't want to be part of a World Cup in Canada, but understanding what the potential obsticales would be includes thinking as FIFA does and where other competition and why might come from.

Not that I think anything is a guarantee or a lock, but CONCACAF in 2026 is as close to one as there is. It will have been 32 years too long since the last World Cup in this region and there are football crazy countries in CONCACAF too (U.S. included). I don't think any OFC country will ever host any time soon unless the AFC breaks up and the Pac Rim countries merge with the OFC.

[Macksam]

And England had everything in place for 2018. Fifa wants to leave legacies with world cups and that means building stadia.

That will benefit our domestic soccer scene. The CFL stadiums being planned obviously won't be apart of that legacy as they are going to be built irregardless of whether we get this World Cup or not. However, we would need to build new 40K-50K stadiums that will be used for soccer afterwards. I imagine new stadiums for Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto would do the trick. This could work as MLS will probably be much bigger in 14 years time and some teams might be filling 40K stadiums regularly, Seattle is close.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Out of curiosity, where would the funding for all of these stadium improvements or new stadium construction come from? I can't see the federal government, with its current mandate of tackling deficits and cutting spending, suddenly opening up the public wallet for new sports infrastructure. Corporate sponsorship may reduce the costs somewhat, but I can't see a company/companies financing the construction of a stadium that may not have the fan base to fill that stadium after the WC crowd leaves.

Now that's a good question.

First I s'pose I should apologize for being a little nasty to some posters, but when they just bitch for negativity sake and add nothing to the debate, I have a problem.

The present federal regime will not fund anything that directly relates to a professional sports franchise, However, if that stadium benefits an educational institution's infrastructure (Winnipeg) or if that stadium is part of an international sporting festival (Hamilton), funding is available. I would think the World Cup comes under the latter category. There are other behind the back ways of funding such as the P3 program, unfortunately Regina's new stadium was refused funding under that program.

Now, dealing with the last sentence, depending on which cities won hosting bids, the only new stadium's to be built might be Quebec or Halifax. There is no way you will see a permanent 80000 seat stadium built unless there was some deal with a private developer who would flip it into an NFL Toronto franchise. There will never be another 38000 plus stadium built in Canada unless it is in Toronto and for the NFL (hope not)

The majority of the stadiums will have temporary structures and be restored to the original config after the WC.

IIRC Vancouver 2010 didn't have any singularly memorable or ostentatious facilities but they won the bid, were a great games, and were able to survive a terrible tragedy at the beginning.

[Olympique_de_Marseille]

Two things nobody seems to be considering:

1. Is there a significant costs to a "formal proposal" to FIFA and a bid for the 2026 World Cup? If not, then it is simply good advertising by the CSA to say they are putting in a bid whether or not we actually get the World Cup. It puts the CSA in the news and shows FIFA we are serious. Any publicity is good publicity. If we fail, so what? The CSA will know (in detail) what they have to improve on.

2. If the next FIFA president is anything like Sepp Blatter (or still is Sepp Blatter!) before the next round of bids occur, they will drop hints beforehand if our bid is too weak. This will allow us if necessary to create a combined bid with the USA, which would be more than strong enough. Anybody think such an eventuality might occur?

Just seems to me to be a good strategic move: little to be lost, much to be gained!

Not that I think anything is a guarantee or a lock, but CONCACAF in 2026 is as close to one as there is...been 32 years... since the last World Cup in this region...

Agreed.

[Macksam]

You'll find there are a lot of posters here like me who don't like the soccer zealots who try to denigrate other sports to try and raise soccer.

Even though some of that does go around on here, you and I both know that a lot more vitriol is spewed in the opposite direction outside this forum....a lot more.

There will never be another 38000 plus stadium built in Canada unless it is in Toronto and for the NFL (hope not)

Never say never. There are probably a lot more scenarios of stadiums that size potentially being built in Canada.

[rob.notenboom]

I'm not sure that anyone can accurately predict what is going to be happening 14 years from now so many statements being offered up are idle speculation and nothing else. Canada could have 6 MLS teams by 2026 or the current three could all have gone under. The Conservatives might change their policy on funding stadiums or they may have ceased to be a political party. Turf that so closely resembles grass as to be indistinguishable from it may have been invented or temporary retrofits of turf stadiums with grass may become much easier ... or there could even be a sea change and players might prefer turf (doubt it though).

I go back to the Qatar situation ... there is a country with no significant soccer history or infrastructure and also with some huge obstacles to hosting the World Cup beyond those two. If they can win the bid, Canada could as well. Everything that has been raised as an objection in this thread so far, is something that could be worked around. Sure, the CSA is not exactly flush with cash but who knows where it will stand in 5 or 10 years.

Two other things: 1) If the Women's World Cup goes as well as the Under 20s did (or better), Canada's reputation for being able to hold a tournament will help its bid immensely. 2) Just bidding for the World Cup significantly raises the profile of the game in Canada, even if the bid is ultimately unsuccessful. I would think most here would applaud that.

[trueviking]

Out of curiosity, where would the funding for all of these stadium improvements or new stadium construction come from? I can't see the federal government, with its current mandate of tackling deficits and cutting spending, suddenly opening up the public wallet for new sports infrastructure. Corporate sponsorship may reduce the costs somewhat, but I can't see a company/companies financing the construction of a stadium that may not have the fan base to fill that stadium after the WC crowd leaves.

the three levels of government are spending $1.4 billion on the glorified high school track meet known as the pan am games in toronto.....the same spent almost $3 billion on the vancouver olympic games.

its true the governments shy away from funding professional sports venues, but they are all in when it comes to events like these....the federal government spent $1 billion on security alone for vancouver...$160m was spent on tourism advertising.....all of a sudden, the cost of a few new stadiums or upgrades to existing ones is not all that significant.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Never say never. There are probably a lot more scenarios of stadiums that size potentially being built in Canada.

Such as?

[Joe MacCarthy]

I'm not sure that anyone can accurately predict what is going to be happening 14 years from now so many statements being offered up are idle speculation and nothing else. Canada could have 6 MLS teams by 2026 or the current three could all have gone under. The Conservatives might change their policy on funding stadiums or they may have ceased to be a political party. Turf that so closely resembles grass as to be indistinguishable from it may have been invented or temporary retrofits of turf stadiums with grass may become much easier ... or there could even be a sea change and players might prefer turf (doubt it though).

Totally agree, change is inevitable in such a long period of time which is what I've been trying to say to the people here who seem to think we'd be playing games at 60 year old, 2010 model artificial turf, unrefurbished MacMahon stadium.

Agree with everything except calling artificial turf, turf. Turf is grass hence the term artificial turf. My pet peeve, sorry. Same with people saying loose instead of lose. Rant over.