Canada can back two major events
Mayor says support for World Cup bid won’t hurt chances of hosting Olympics
The federal government’s $5-million commitment to support a unified North American bid for the 2026 FIFA World Cup is unlikely to affect whether it would also contribute to a potential Calgary bid for the Winter Olympics the same year, experts and stakeholders say.
Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities Kirsty Duncan announced Tuesday that the Liberal government would support the FIFA bid, which, if successful, would also include men’s soccer games in Mexico and the United States. The North American trio is up against Morocco, with a decision expected in June.
Last month, Mayor Naheed Nenshi said the city should have more information soon about possible commitments by the federal and provincial governments for a potential 2026 Olympic bid. A commitment of $1.2 billion each would be needed to move forward, according to Kyle Ripley, director of the Calgary Olympic and Paralympic 2026 Project.
Annabelle Archambault, a spokeswoman for Duncan, said Ottawa is continuing discussions with its sport partners “to make sure we make the right decision, not a rushed decision” when it comes to Calgary potentially hosting the 2026 Winter Games.
She noted that it’s not unprecedented for federal dollars to fund two major sporting events in Canada in the same year.
“Co-hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup makes this a much smaller and affordable event than if Canada were to host it alone,” Archambault said. “It has been done before, for example, when Canada hosted the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup and the Toronto 2015 Pan American and Parapan American Games in the same year.”
Nenshi echoed those thoughts Tuesday, adding that the U.S. would shoulder the load of the FIFA tournament if North America wins the right to host.
“Canada will not get a ton of matches,” he said. “As a result, I think the capacity is absolutely there to do both big events in the same year if that’s what the feds choose to do.”
Mount Royal University professor David Legg, who specializes in sports management and is involved with the Calgary Bid Exploration Committee, said that while it’s rare for one country to host multiple sporting events of this magnitude in the same year, Canada’s position as a secondary FIFA host would help justify the government backing both.
The federal policy for hosting “International Major Multisport Games” such as the Olympics or Commonwealth Games sets out that the government can only consider support for hosting two such events every 10 years.
“International Single Sport Events,” such as World Cups, are separate from that restriction.
“Unless they’re looking for an excuse, unless they’re looking for a cop-out, I don’t think that they would use that as the rationale for which to not support (an Olympic) bid,” said Legg. “I think the reality is, if they do want to support both, I think there’s a rationale to be made recognizing that Canada is, again, a lesser partner in the FIFA bid.”
Compared to the cost of hosting an entire FIFA tournament, the government’s $5-million World Cup commitment is so small it’s “utterly irrelevant” to the Olympic decision, said sports economist Moshe Lander.
“It should be utterly independent, other than Calgary at least can now get in line and say, ‘well, what about us?’ ” said Lander, who teaches at Concordia University and spends two months a year instructing in Calgary.
He pointed to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, which cost about US$15 billion, and the 2010 tournament in South Africa, which cost close to US$4 billion. The Canadian government’s commitment, which would help “support continued development of event plans and budgets that will inform future decisions around specific funding for the event” amounts to about 0.1 per cent of South Africa’s final price tag.
“I don’t see this changing anything,” said Lander. “I don’t think the $5 million makes a difference to that and I don’t think that the $5 million should be read any further into the Calgary bid. I think that bid is not driven by economics to begin with, and what’s going to get federal money there is just it’s the Olympics, and it’s inherently more meaningful.”