Good Riddance, FIFA: Why Montreal Made the Right Call

Every few weeks this summer, I know someone is going to say it. Maybe at a barbecue during a lull in conversation, maybe overheard at a bar while a match is playing: It's too bad Montreal isn't hosting. Maybe this will be said with the particular melancholic belief that the city got outbid, outbuilt, and outmuscled by a hungrier (or better prepared) Toronto and Vancouver. They will believe that Montreal got left behind.

This is the wrong take. The story is more interesting and more flattering to Montreal: We didn't fail to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup, but we did look at the contract, do the math, and told FIFA to take a hike.

Just sign here

What FIFA was asking for tends to get buried under the noise of a broader “isn't it a shame?” narrative. Through an access-to-information request, Radio-Canada's investigative team Enquête obtained thousands of documents outlining the conditions FIFA imposed on prospective host cities. The same contract that Toronto and Vancouver ultimately signed was offered to Montreal. Quebec's then-tourism minister Caroline Proulx, who reviewed those documents directly, described FIFA's demands as "totally ridiculous" and said the organization was being "greedy."

Under FIFA's terms, no events or programming would have been permitted at the Olympic Stadium between late April and mid-July. Fields used for World Cup matches would have been locked out of other uses for twenty-three months. FIFA wanted access to Parc Jean-Drapeau and the Old Port for nearly two months of the summer. And, perhaps most significantly, no major sporting events would have been allowed in Montreal in the week before the World Cup final, nor the week after it.

That last condition would’ve led to a blackout on the Canadian Grand Prix, the Jazz Festival, Francos, and the Montreal Triathlon (not to mention the disruption to smaller-scale festivals caught in the crossfire). All this would be gone in exchange for the privilege of hosting a handful of soccer matches that FIFA would monetize entirely on its own terms—ticket sales, advertising, merchandise—while paying zero taxes on any of it. The economic benefits cited to justify all of this were drawn from a study FIFA itself commissioned and refused to share in full.

Keeping up with the Joneses

The counterargument is that Montreal left money on the table. The World Cup is the biggest sporting event on the planet with billions of viewers, tourists flooding host cities (provided they want to pay the price), and an influx of cash that, in theory, justifies short-term disruptions.

So if Toronto and Vancouver are willing to absorb the cost, why couldn't Montreal?

Because the cost keeps growing, for one thing. Toronto's initial projection of $30 to $45 million has ballooned to north of $380 million. Vancouver went from $240 million to an estimate pushing $624 million. Between the two cities, the federal government is covering $220 million, which amounts to roughly a million dollars per minute of regulation time. The RCMP separately estimated security costs alone could run into the hundreds of millions. The economic windfall those numbers are supposed to unlock, however, are based on a report FIFA paid for and wouldn't release in detail.

You're halfway in

Keep reading “Good Riddance, FIFA”

The Main is Montreal's city magazine. We write the stories about this city nobody else is telling.

We're independent and reader-supported. Your support keeps us going.

Your email costs you nothing and opens the rest of this story now. It also means the next one reaches you on a Thursday, instead of disappearing into a feed.

No password. No payment. Opens instantly.

Already a member? Sign in