Quote:
Originally Posted by Goldie
The 2026 World Cup was awarded to Canada/U.S./Mexico today.
But y'know what? ZERO games will be held in Winnipeg because the Blue Bombers (you know, the owners of Winnipeg Valour soccer team) couldn't have been bothered to apply for one.
It's unbelievable how bad/lazy this ownership group is.
What was the point of building IGF if you don't use every resource available to land world-class events?!
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When the bid was announced over a year ago they outright said it wasn't a potential spot due to size – there was no chance it was going to happen here. FIFAs absolute minimum capacity for first round is 40,000 for group stage, and 80,000 for opening games and finals.
The smallest venue is BMO field which is expanding to 45,000, but it was actually built to handle expansion and extra people on the concourses. Our temporary "extra seating" setup is a joke. Absolutely doesn't work at all – NHL saw how awful it was at the Grey Cup and nixed it for Winter Classic.
The next smallest one is in Mexico at 48,000, while all others are over 50k, with almost all American ones over 70k+.
Vancouver and several other dropped out because they didn't see any potential for real profit due to the ridiculous security and operations costs FIFA imposes.
It's been pretty obvious from the get-go that this is essentially an American bid, but they included Mexico & Canada as soccer just isn't as big in USA/Canada as everywhere else, so it makes sense to bring the continent together.