Did Canada get the World Cup’s sloppy seconds?
Ticket prices are tanking and footie fans are pissed
Did you hear that sound over the weekend? It was BMO Field FIFA ticket holders crying foul after they found out Canada’s status as World Cup “co-host” has been wildly overstated—like saying the relative in charge of bringing canned cranberry sauce is “co-hosting” Christmas dinner, when really all the important stuff is being handled by someone else.
On Friday, Prime Minister Mark Carney joined Donald Trump, Claudia Sheinbaum and FIFA president Giovanni Infantino for the official World Cup draw to see which countries would face off in initial rounds of gameplay. We got our answers: Canada will play Qatar, Switzerland and a toss-up between Northern Ireland, Wales, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Italy.
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Only it turns out that the more important question was where each match would take place. And that’s where Canada got massively and somewhat unexpectedly shafted. Normally, the location of games is also determined at the draw event, and it’s not as big of a deal when the entire World Cup is taking place in a single country, as is the norm. But with Canada, the US and Mexico supposedly splitting hosting duties, the stakes were higher than usual.
Before Friday, Toronto’s BMO Field had been in the running for the England match-ups as well as France versus Norway, any of which would likely have had the largest global viewership of any sports match played in Toronto, per the Globe and Mail‘s Cathal Kelly. But, somehow—and here’s where it’s hard not to toss some side-eye at the shameless bromance between Trump and Infantino—all of those games went to American stadiums.
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Toronto will host Ghana versus Panama, Germany versus the Ivory Coast, Croatia versus Panama, and Senegal versus either Iraq, Bolivia or Suriname. Those are all very nice countries with very nice athletes, but the matches aren’t expected to make sports history.
Already, many of the BMO Field tickets purchased before game locations have tanked on the resale market: in some cases, value has dropped by more than $1,000 per ticket. Canada’s FIFA mascot, Maple the Moose, has yet to comment on recent developments, but this sort of flex from America’s Clutch the Bald Eagle is exactly what he was afraid of.
Courtney Shea is a freelance journalist in Toronto. She started her career as an intern at Toronto Life and continues to contribute frequently to the publication, including her 2022 National Magazine Award–winning feature, “The Death Cheaters,” her regular Q&As and her recent investigation into whether Taylor Swift hung out at a Toronto dive bar (she did not). Courtney was a producer and writer on the 2022 documentary The Talented Mr. Rosenberg, based on her 2014 Toronto Life magazine feature “The Yorkville Swindler.”
