The province has finally paid its $97-million portion of FIFA World Cup funding
The first of six games scheduled in Toronto is just four months away
Remember that $97 million in FIFA funding the city was awaiting from the province, just months out from the first World Cup match being played at BMO Field?
According to the Toronto Star, the province has finally sent it over. At this week’s city council budget meeting, city manager Paul Johnson said the contribution agreement was imminently on its way. “I’ll be signing off on it for the full $97 million that the province committed,” he said. “So that is good news.” The city later confirmed to the Star that the document had been signed.
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The entire budget for Toronto’s six World Cup matches is $380 million. The city agreed to pay $180 million of that, and the federal government will pay $104 million.
“The agreement confirms the total provincial contribution, with the allocation between cash and in-kind services to be finalized as service cost estimates are confirmed,” city spokesperson Elise von Scheel told the Star.
Though concerns remain about final costs going over-budget, this is a much more promising tone than when we last reported on FIFA funding. Less than a month ago, Councillor Paul Ainslie told reporters, in reference to the province, “We’d really like you to sign your cheques.”
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Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
