Toronto Mayor John Tory has endorsed bringing part of the world’s biggest sporting event to Canada’s biggest city in 2026.
Competing against Morocco, Canada, the U.S. and Mexico are currently sharing a bid to bring FIFA’s World Cup to North America in 2026.
“Hosting the FIFA World Cup is a once in a generation opportunity to showcase Toronto to the world,” Tory said in a media release on Monday.
If the three-country bid–known as United 2026–is successful, Canada and Mexico would host 10 games each and the U.S. would host the other 60.
FIFA will announce the winner in June.
A successful bid would cost Toronto between $30 million and $45 million, but in his news release, Tory called the idea “irresistible.”
“I think if you ask the taxpayers…they’d rather have the money go to that than anything else we do,” Tory told the Toronto Star.
Toronto is competing with Edmonton, Montreal and Vancouver to host the games while 28 cities in the U.S. and Mexico are also being considered.
How and where the games in Canada will be divvied up will be announced in 2021.
In October, an online Ispos survey found that 76 per cent of Canadian respondents expressed support for hosting the games.
Canadians support World Cup bid-survey
Canada hosted the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2015 while Toronto hosted the 2015 Pan American and Parapan American Games and the 2017 Invictus Games.
As a host country, Canada, currently ranked 95th in the world, would also automatically qualify for the 48-country 30-day event.
Russia hosts this year’s World Cup, Qatar hosts the 2022 event.
With files from CP, CBC, Toronto Star
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