The Decibel - Uncovering FIFA’s costly World Cup demands on Canadian cities

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

Vancouver and Toronto are getting ready to host FIFA World Cup matches in June and July, and the demands FIFA makes tend to be costly. Requirements from FIFA go from stadium renovations to branding enforcement, transportation and even tax exemptions. All three levels of government have already spent hundreds of millions of dollars in preparation.     Contracts between FIFA and host cities aren’t usually public, but Greg Mercer, The Globe’s investigative reporter, managed to get access to them. He’s on the show to explain what he learned and how FIFA manages to make all these expensive and exorbitant demands on host cities.  Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

FIFA demands that host cities for the World Cup roll out the red carpet when they come to town. And that costs a lot of money. Toronto and Vancouver are getting ready to host World Cup matches in June and July. And already, all three levels of government have spent hundreds of millions of dollars getting ready for the events. A report by Canada's parliamentary budget officer said each game, hosted by Toronto and Vancouver, will cost about, $82 million in public funds. Most of that spending is because of requirements from FIFA, and they go way beyond revamping stadiums.

There's demands around broadcasting, branding, transportation, visa times, and that's just to name a few. The contracts between FIFA and the municipalities aren't often public, but the Globe's investigative reporter Greg Mercer got his hands on them. Today, he walks us through what he learned and how FIFA is able to make such onerous and expensive demands on host cities. I'm Cheryl Sutherland, and this is the decibel from the Globe and Mail. Hi, Greg, great to see you. Hey, Cheryl. Thanks for having me.

So we know that hosting big global events like the World Cup is expensive, but how much are we talking about here? Like, what's the grand total for Vancouver and Toronto to host these games? Well, the latest estimate is $1.1 billion, and that may grow even further than that. But that's according to the parliamentary budget officer. So for Toronto, it's about $425 million. And in the case of Vancouver, it's closer to $660. It could be even over $700 million when it's all said and done. So that's more than $1.1 billion as a country from all three levels of government for this tournament.

You know, these are staggering numbers when you take a step back and consider this is for 13 soccer games. And that number has grown significantly since bidding began about eight years ago. What was the number when bidding began? Well, in Toronto's case, it was about $38 to $45 million. It's now about 10 times that. And in BC's case, in 2022, when they reentered bidding, it was closer to $240 to $260 million. And it's now almost three times that. So those, numbers have grown dramatically. And I think as we're getting a full appreciation of how much this is costing, people are saying, how did we get here? But these are questions we probably should have asked years ago. So this does sound like a lot of money. But can you put that into context?

Like, is that a lot for the World Cup? It is. Yeah. Certainly Canadian cities are spending more than their counterparts in the U.S. The U.S. has not offered any kind of tallied figure so we can compare it directly. But we know that places like San Francisco or For L.A., their costs are closer to, you know, $150 million, where in Toronto, it's 450 million. So I think it's fair to ask questions about how did that happen? How did we, these costs in Canada balloon so much? Yeah, and on that ballooning number, you mentioned that the cities didn't think it was going to cost this much. Why is that?

I think because there were early estimates that really didn't take into account the cost of providing security and policing for these events. These are massive police deployments. I don't think we fully appreciated those costs. I don't think that the cities fully appreciated the stadium upgrades that be required. So we spent hundreds of millions of dollars more than we thought we'd have to to meet FIFA standards that are laid out in these contracts. I think that when city counselors were initially voting, they didn't have any of that information. Okay. And why is it that Canadian cities are spending more than American or Mexican cities?

The Mexican example is kind of unique because they've taken it on as sort of a federal project to grow tourism. So they're spending billions of dollars. But in American cities... So more than Canada then. Yeah, it appears to be. The American example, we're seeing a lot more use of private funding, of corporate sponsorship. In some cases, American cities have been more aggressive about scaling down their World Cup obligations, cutting back on these fan festivals that FIFA wants them to run. And also a lot of the American cities had larger NFL stadiums that were more ready to host World Cup-sized events. So the car. Costs, in some cases, have been lower to the American cities.

Right, okay. So they didn't have to make as many changes to stadiums as Canadian cities had to do, and we'll get into that. Okay, so you mentioned that there are these requirements from FIFA and there are these contracts. So let's get into these contracts that FIFA has. Cities have to sign contracts with FIFA to host the World Cup games. What do these contracts lay out? I mean, they lay out everything, right? They are basically a rulebook for running the tournament.

And it's more than just a stadium rental agreement, right? It lays out all the obligations of the host cities on everything from transportation and immigration, crowd control and policing and stadium upgrades. And also there's a lot of language around protecting FIFA's commercial rights. And they make it very clear that the revenues from this tournament in large part are going to flow to FIFA and that the obligations and the risks are something that the cities and governments have to carry. It's very interesting. And these contracts aren't normally available to the public,

but you did get a hold of them. How did you do that? In Toronto's case, I used a freedom of information request. So it took a few months to get it. It is a public document, but the city did have to go to FIFA to get approval to release this document. But we felt this is, you know, in the public's interest, to get this information. I mean, these contracts control significant amounts of public spending.

So we wanted to get our hands on it. They eventually did release it. In Vancouver's case, an independent journalist Bob Macon spent years, about three years. fighting Vancouver to get a copy of their contract. And it was only released last year after the province's information and privacy commissioner intervened and made a ruling. So these are, they are public documents, but they're not generally available to the public.

Why is that? FIFA argues that they're commercially sensitive, right? That they want this information protected because this is their business model and they don't want to share publicly. Critics of these models say it's so that cities can't compare what other cities are offering FIFA because essentially FIFA has used this. competition between cities to host as leverage to get better and better deals from municipalities. Would that speak a little bit to the fact that perhaps Toronto, Vancouver, didn't really know how much it was going to cost, and that's perhaps why it's balloon so much?

That's part of it. Yeah, there's a lot of secrecy around how FIFA operates. And people who study this organization have said that's a real problem for governments who are trying to make informed decisions about whether or not these are good deals for cities. There have been some controversies around what FIFA required of cities and host nations before this World Cup coming up. Can you just remind us of some of those times? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, FIFA is a big, powerful organization. They are used to getting their way. Some of the more famous examples include when Brazil hosted the World Cup, they had this long-running ban on alcohol sales in their soccer stadiums because of fan violence.

And FIFA forced them to overturn that law temporarily to please one of their major sponsors. So they kind of changed the law here. They changed the law. And this was in 2014. That's right. They changed the law to please FIFA's sponsor. In the case of South Africa, the South African government brought in temporary courts to expedite hearings, basically to meet a standard for FIFA so that they could have tighter control over security.

Russia and Qatar, they made concessions on labor laws so that people could work around the clock without compensation. And this was at the request of FIFA and a lot of human rights organizations, concerns about that. And they also demanded free transportation for ticket holders. And these are significant costs to those governments who gave in because they wanted to win the bids for FIFA. So interesting. Yeah, it just goes to show how much cities and countries are willing to do to get the games in their place. And so there have been some requirements that have been a little bit controversial here for Toronto and Vancouver. Can you tell me about those? Yeah, there's been a number

that have come out in recent months in the last few years. I mean, FIFA asked for VIs. access to hospitals in Canada for their executives. That was turned down. They asked for, in the contract, the right to ban any concerts or major sporting events that would run at the same time as the World Cup. In other words, they didn't want any competing events. Cities have said, we can't do that. They asked for some labor concessions.

The provinces said, we cannot do that. And they've even asked for, and this is still included in the contract, they've asked cities that FIFA's corporate sponsors would have preferred status to be the primary suppliers for all World Cup services and products needed during the tournament. And cities have said, we can't. We have laws that prevent that kind of thing. We have procurement laws. Can you spend a little bit more? Like what does that mean? Preferred sponsors would be able to do what in the case that FIFA was asking? So the language says that host cities when they are making purchasing decisions, they should buy from FIFA's corporate partners rather than anyone else. And the cities have said,

we have laws that prevent that. We have bidding of a process. We have procurement laws. We can't simply just buy from FIFA's partners because FIFA wants it. And so they've pushed back on that. So that's one of the examples of where they've said that's a step too far. Okay. There is some pushback there. Let's talk about some of the money here because there is a lot of money to be made from hosting the World Cup games. How much money is going to the cities and how much to FIFA? Like, what do the contracts say? Well, I mean, they show very clearly the cities get very little, right? The World Cup will generate a lot of money for a lot of people, just not the hosts. I think that might be surprising for people to hear. Because I feel like if you hear that the games are coming to

Toronto and Vancouver, you're thinking, wow, what a, this is going to be a lot of money for the municipality. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think it's good for the hospitality sector. There's no question. It's good for restaurants and bars and, you know, Airbnb owners, that kind of thing. But the city itself, in terms of revenue generated from the tournament, it will be nominal. The contracts make it clear that the bulk of the revenue from TV broadcast rights, from corporate partners, from ticket sales, even concessions in the stadiums themselves, all of that flows back to FIFA, not the cities. So what you're saying is like in the stadium,

where you can get a hot dog or whatever, that money is going to FIFA. It's going to FIFA, yeah. That is surprising to me. Yeah, I think a lot of people would be surprised. FIFA basically comes to town. They say, give us your stadium. And by the way, we're going to take all the revenue from it.

Wow. And that means while all that revenue goes to FIFA, all of the costs and the responsibilities of hosting the tournament fall on the cities. And that's everything from safety and security to transportation to stadium upgrades. those costs and risks fall on local governments. And also FIFA gets some sort of tax break from the revenue it makes at the games, right? How does that work?

Yeah, part of the contracts, and they've asked us of all host cities, are for exemptions, these special, basically exempted zones around the stadiums where FIFA doesn't have to pay income tax or sales tax. And that's written right into the contracts. And in some cases they want to be reimbursed in cases where they do pay taxes. So taxpayer advocacy groups look at that kind of stuff and say, This is a bad deal for the public. It's a bad deal for taxpayers. But these are the kind of things that FIFA have been able to get in the past because cities have wanted so badly to get that political prize of the World Cup. They've been willing to give this stuff away. Wow. And yeah, once you found the contract, that's that's in the agreement. Yeah.

Okay, so let's get into a breakdown of the costs of hosting games, starting with stadium upgrades. What does FIFA say is required to make sure the venues are ready to host the games and how much does that cost? I mean, in Toronto and Vancouver's costs, I mean, they're two of the biggest items in terms of spending. The city of Toronto and Maple Leaf Sports Entertainment spent something like $150 million to upgrade BMO Field, which they can't call BMO Field for the tournament, by the way. It has to be called Toronto Stadium because BMO is not a FIFA sponsor. Are they going to cover the sign BMO to something else? Yeah, there can be no mention of the word BMO Stadium, BMO Field rather, in the tournament at all. In the case of Toronto, they're building more than 17,000 temporary seats, which will be removed after the tournament.

There's been a lot of work to improve the pitch, the quality of the field, you know, lighting and retail spaces. And a lot of it is also built around a lot of the money is going to the broadcast requirements for FIFA. They want a world-class kind of television experience. And so they've demanded these upgrades to both stadiums. In Vancouver's case, they've had to put in a new temporary grass pitch. They've had to put in new elevators, you know, new lighting to meet FIFA standards. And this has been a significant cost. I mean, hundreds of millions of dollars for both cities to upgrade these facilities.

We'll be right back. One of the biggest costs we're learning about for the games is for security. Why is this such a big part of the cost? It's huge. I think that, one, FIFA doesn't want any incidents, right? And they want to be, they want essentially cities to guarantee there will be no problems, whether it's from protests or riots or hooliganism or terrorism. They want cities and countries to do everything they can to prevent that.

It's really grown in terms of a cost. I don't think cities fully appreciated how much what it would turn into. In both cases, it is the largest police deployment that either Vancouver or Toronto have ever seen. We're talking thousands of police officers from multiple police forces who will be in those cities. There's going to be policing everywhere. We're going to see them on horseback. We're going to see canine units. There's going to be a lot of traffic control.

They'll be in the sky. There's a lot of intelligence monitoring for terrorism threats and even a lot of work around hooliganism, which is a real concern with the World Cup. Yeah, explain to me why that's such a big concern for FIFA, hooliganism. Yeah, so I mean, hooliganism, when we see large groups of fans get out of control and start to riot and fight with each other, that is more of a feature of like club soccer that you see in Europe or in the UK. But it has been an issue in the past with the World Cup. famously when France hosted, hundreds of English and Tunisian fans got into a massive brawl that turned into a riot that sent hundreds of people to the hospital and just millions of dollars in property damage. This stuff has come up from time to time when fans from different nations have started clashing with each other. Usually it involves a lot of drinking.

So this is the kind of stuff that in Toronto and Vancouver they're trying to prevent. They're even bringing in what they call football intelligence officers. And these are going to be plainclothes police from different countries around the world who are going to be embedded with the fans. and who are going to be relaying information to the local police saying, hey, this group of fans are marching down this street. Can we stop traffic and prevent them from colliding with a group of fans from another country? They're really just trying to be proactive and keep on top of it to avoid potential clashes. You also mentioned terrorism as a concern. Can you explain why that's a concern?

Just because the whole world is watching, right? That this is one of the largest television events that we'll ever see in terms of the audience. So there are concerns that terror groups want to exploit that. And so there's going to be a lot of cooperation between the three host countries, working with their intelligence allies to monitor for threats. You know, when you have hundreds of thousands of people gathering for these kind of events, it always raises the threat level. And so that's something that the security agencies and police are monitoring and trying to stay on top.

Then there's also traffic management. I've seen some management already happening in Toronto. What do cities have to do there? There's a lot, and the cities have tried to tell people who live around the stadiums in Vancouver and Toronto that it's going to be really frustrating for much of June and July. There's going to be a lot of street closures. There's going to be a lot of areas where cars can't enter or cars can't park where they normally can. They're encouraging people to take public transit or bike rather than drive to work. In some cases, they're even saying maybe for the month of June, you work from home if you can.

It's not just about congestion. Law enforcement will also have to control perimeters around the stadiums, right? Absolutely, yeah. They're going to have access points and perimeters around the stadium so that vehicles can't get too close to the stadium. That's a security measure. That's an anti-terrorism feature, to be honest. They want to be able to control who comes and goes and who gets into these areas around where the games are being played. There's also this demand about VIP access in the city for the teams and soccer officials. For example, the FIFA president asked for a motorcade in Vancouver. Yeah, that was a really contentious. ask, but reportedly, the FIFA chief in Fantino's office asked for like a Pope-style motorcade. So this is where you're surrounded by police motorcycles and you have sort of armed personnel who were scoring you through the city and you don't have to wait at traffic lights.

You basically, I mean, this is the treatment that we would give to heads of state when they visit. And this is what he had report, his office had reportedly asked for. And this is even before the game started. That's right. He was out in Vancouver last month for the World Cup Congress, which is an event that's separate from the World Cup. The city police had turned it down initially, but they did give him a version of that saying that, oh, this is a good chance to do a trial run for the World Cup. Okay. So can we make a tally here?

Like, how much will security cost for Vancouver and Toronto? Do we have a sense of that? It's going to be well into over $400 million for the two cities. I mean, that's going to include everything from not just policing around the stadiums, but they also have to provide security at the hotels where the teams are staying. They have to provide motorcades as the teams are traveling to and from their training facilities to the stadium. All of that, FIFA wants guaranteed protections around those people. So that comes at a significant cost. Right.

FIFA also requires something called controlled areas. What is that? Yeah, FIFA, as part of their pitch to their corporate sponsors, is that they sell exclusivity. That if you are the official soft drink of the World Cup, you don't have to worry about your rival crashing the party. And so they've asked the cities to create these two kilometer wide clean zones around the stadiums where actual city bylaw officers and these volunteer brand police monitors are going to be going around. That's essentially what they are. Wow. They're going around looking for anybody who's trying to do ambush marketing and suggest an affiliation with the World Cup that they haven't paid for.

So that includes, say, you're a bar owner who has a patio and saying come watch the World Cup. They might ask you to take the term World Cup off your sign because you haven't paid for that affiliation. Come watch the sports match. Exactly. So it's that kind of thing. I mean, it sounds quite silly, but they take this very seriously that they have sold exclusivity to their sponsors and they want nobody else gaining any kind of benefit from that. Why is FIFA so worried about a company or a local bar even using the words World Cup? I mean, because it's trademarked and that is a core part of their revenue. And in the past, we have seen some notable examples of ambush or guerrilla marketing. It happened in the South African World Cup when this Dutch beer company,

and he flew in a few hundred women in orange dresses and got them into the stadium and got them on television. It was clearly an ad for that beer company. But one of FIFA's main sponsors, ABMBE, was pretty upset about it. They're saying, hey, we've paid for exclusivity. We don't want another company coming in, even if they're doing it in a sneaky way. We don't want to see that. So those women were actually thrown in jail.

Many of them threatened with charges. In jail? In jail, yeah, for a marketing stunt, essentially. They don't want anybody coming in and selling merchandise that's not affiliated. They don't want anybody throwing their own FIFA party, come and pay and watch the game. They want to just control everything around the stadium to make sure that it's only their affiliated commercial partners who are benefiting. I'm curious, how do FIFA's hosting requirements compare to hosting events like the Olympics? Because we know the Olympics are also very expensive.

The biggest difference is that in the Olympics, hosts get a bigger share of the revenue, right? They have a bigger share of ticketing and merchandise and the operational revenue. They get to enjoy more of that. So while the Olympics come with a big price tag, right? And we've seen a lot of examples of that where host nations spend billions of dollars and economically it's a loss, they at least get some more money during the tournament. So in FIFA's case, because they are this monopoly, there's nothing else that compares to the World Cup, they've been able to kind of demand more than really any other sporting tournament in terms of these concessions from cities.

Yeah, it sounds like FIFA isn't a league of its own here. It really is. Yeah, it has a global monopoly on the World Cup. And there's no other tournament that compares with it. For a lot of politicians, it's a political trophy to win the World Cup. And so they will do whatever it takes to get a chance to host this tournament. And that often means that the rest of us are paying for it. And a lot of folks say, well, the economics aren't there.

I mean, there's a lot of prestige. There's a lot of global attention that comes with these tournaments. And that's a good thing. But we do have to ask difficult questions about the costs of hosting. Yeah, on that then, like cities like Toronto and Vancouver, why did they agree? Like, what is the sell? So FIFA says their estimate is that the tournament will bring about $2 billion in economic activity in terms of GDP to the Canadian economy. Critics will say those numbers are inflated, but those are FIFA's numbers.

There's no question it is good for the hospitality sector. I mean, there's a boost there. And politicians who are pro World Cup will say this is putting us on a world stage. This is global attention. And hopefully for the long term, it reminds the world, hey, we're here, you should come and see us. What a lovely place we are. So they hope that for years to come, there's going to be economic benefits. Is there also something to say about the cities sprucing themselves up?

Like, for example, in Toronto, you're seeing a lot of fixes to roads. You know, they're revamping stadiums in favor of these events. They're tearing some of it down, but there will still be some things that will last afterwards. Is that a good thing for cities and the people living there in the longer run? I think it's good and bad. I mean, I think sprucing up your city, you can argue that's a good thing, right? And putting your best foot forward for the world, that's a good thing. There are homeless advocacy groups who say what we're doing with homeless folks to get ready for the World Cup.

They feel there's pressure to move these people out of prominent places like Union Station in Toronto. They're saying that's not a good thing. So there's good and bad, I think, with this effort to kind of clean up the cities ahead of the World Cup. We talked about cities refusing some of FIFA's demands this time around. Is there a sense that FIFA is recognizing that it may be asking too much of cities? Like, what have we been seeing here? Yeah, I think we're starting to see cities pushing back more. I think really what's driving the bus on some of these changes is that FIFA is also trying to get cities to bid on the

2031 women's World Cup. And there are some cities are saying, no, thank you. Cities that were in the running for the men's world cup who've said, we've actually had a look at the fine print and we see what you're asking for and economically this is not a good deal for us. So they're saying we're backing out of the women's tournament. I think FIFA is realizing we have to to soften some of our demands if we want to to keep cities interested in this and convince them that this is in their interest. And so I think we're seeing FIFA realizing it has to change its tune a little bit. I mean, the reality is this tournament is still incredibly profitable for FIFA. The estimate is something like $13 billion over the course of this tournament. I mean, that would make it the most

lucrative sporting event we've ever seen. So FIFA is doing just fine. And I think they realize that maybe that imbalance in these contracts that has to shift a little bit. How are you feeling about the games being here, having done all this reporting? Well, I feel torn. I mean, I love soccer and I'm excited to see Canada play on home soil in the World Cup. I mean, that's a really cool thing that we all get to witness. So as a soccer fan, as someone who coaches my kid's soccer, I'm excited for my children to watch this. And I'm excited to watch these games myself and to see this, you know, in our country.

But as a journalist, I want to ask questions about how we're paying for all this. And is this good for our country? Is this good for our cities? And so I just think it's fair and reasonable to say, hey, let's look at the fine print and is this really a good deal for the hosts. Greg, thank you so much for this work and for coming on the show. Thank you.

That was Greg Mercer, an investigative reporter at the globe. That's it for today. I'm Cheryl Sutherland. Cynthia Jimenez is our associate producer and intern. Ali Graham mixed this episode. Our producers are, Madeline White, Rachel Levy McLaughlin and Mikhail Stein. Our editor is David Crosby.

Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pichenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening.