Western Standard - July 16, 2026


Toronto’s World Cup Hosting： Was It Worth It？ Residents Weigh In


Episode Stats


Length

6 minutes

Words per minute

196.71

Word count

1,344

Sentence count

33

Harmful content

Hate speech

3

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Uh, FIFA's corrupt, but what can you do? I don't know.
00:00:03.680 We'll let bioses corrupt, governments are corrupt. 1.00
00:00:06.700 Just want to have a bit of fun. I don't want to stress too much about it. 1.00
00:00:20.160 I'm here in downtown Toronto, where Canada recently played host to several games in the
00:00:24.700 2026 World Cup as part of our co-hosting agreement with Mexico and the United States.
00:00:30.000 the games brought massive international attention giving us packed stadiums and a surge in visitors
00:00:34.720 to the city but with over a billion dollars in taxpayer costs for canada's share including
00:00:39.280 infrastructure and operations and some rumors of politicians getting free tickets while everyday
00:00:44.640 folks like you and me had to pay premium prices many people in toronto are left wondering was it
00:00:49.680 really worth it to bring the games here we took to the streets to see what residents of toronto had
00:00:53.600 to say uh frankly i love soccer i love the world cup i love how it brings like communities together
00:00:59.200 you know especially in a diverse multicultural fabric like Toronto but economically like for my
00:01:04.560 for me at least like a slow down work for a lot in the city and we live in a society where
00:01:09.360 you either rely on wage or salary for to pay your bills and your rent and stuff like that so
00:01:14.460 in many ways it was negative in that respect as well you know and I feel it could have been
00:01:20.100 handled better but no world cup is perfect but I mean go England I guess you know they all they 1.00
00:01:25.860 work for the same masters but i don't want argentina to win that's for sure is there any
00:01:30.660 events that you think that toronto would do better to put on rather than events like you know fifa is
00:01:34.580 pretty famous for taking a large percentage of the profits um so if there's anything else that
00:01:38.420 you think that the city would be more invested in i mean i mean toronto like they have the
00:01:43.060 opportunity to even make something of their own where they would reflect the multicultural fabric
00:01:47.940 of our city but this feels like i don't know if it's corruption or just an aptitude of our
00:01:52.340 politicians and the bureaucrats and stuff but i feel like there could be a lot more positivity
00:01:57.940 grown if we just like focus on our what we got here and grow that instead of like importing
00:02:03.460 events here i think in general i would like to have spend the money on problems like the
00:02:10.660 homelessness in the city because you have some corners there um where it's not that nice to to
00:02:17.620 walk being two women and night um but in general once in a lifetime i think it's okay to bring the
00:02:25.300 games in the city i think we're a class city reserved at world-class events excellent around
00:02:29.620 with spending on things that make people happy so uh the return investment for the city was
00:02:34.660 underwhelming and uh they were expecting a return on parks and festivals not always but it makes
00:02:39.220 people happy that's what your tax dollars go to so let's enjoy things absolutely and do you have
00:02:43.700 have any thoughts on how fifa takes a large percentage of their earnings for themselves or
00:02:47.140 yeah i mean that's not great uh fifa's corrupt but what can you do i don't know what ioc is corrupt
00:02:54.180 governments are corrupt just want to have a bit of fun i don't want to stress too much about it
00:02:58.020 it's been great for the city had a lot of people um out and about enjoying uh from all over the
00:03:02.340 world and uh obviously toronto is the best and uh they've been voted one of the best
00:03:08.020 seems to be a part of in the whole FIFA World Cup anyway so rock on and go England. Fantastic.
00:03:14.340 Do you have any thoughts on the fact that some politicians were getting free tickets to the
00:03:17.780 games meanwhile members of the city were having to spend upwards of like sixteen hundred dollars
00:03:21.460 I heard for some tickets. Well I unfortunately didn't get any tickets or can't afford to go
00:03:26.100 into those games but I'm not sure if the standpoint in some of them but I know some countries like
00:03:31.540 Kenya were able to get some of their fans to go out there and support their country that way and
00:03:36.340 And I think Toronto should have probably followed that same suit.
00:03:39.540 Fantastic.
00:03:40.060 And then the last question is, what are your thoughts on how much of the overhaul that FIFA ends up taking from the city,
00:03:45.140 as opposed to how much we're earning as the hosts?
00:03:47.400 Wow, there was probably some astronomical numbers there, but maybe we should get some of that back.
00:03:53.680 What are your thoughts on the price of tickets and the fact that, you know,
00:03:56.860 there's rumours that politicians were getting free tickets.
00:03:58.840 Well, meanwhile, regular Canadians were spending upwards of like $1,600.
00:04:02.720 Yeah, it's crazy.
00:04:04.800 Absolutely crazy.
00:04:05.560 but it's not surprising considering all the corruption right we've we've learned
00:04:15.640 to live with it and accept it that's too bad absolutely and do you have any
00:04:22.180 thoughts on other events that you think the city should be making bids on to
00:04:25.780 bring here or where else they could just be spending the money in general I do
00:04:29.860 do you think we should be spending more money at home?
00:04:34.360 Or is a lot here that needs to be done
00:04:36.640 instead of going into debt?
00:04:38.120 I know we're building a lot,
00:04:40.980 but in addition to,
00:04:43.440 we just can't afford everything we're doing.
00:04:45.100 It would have been awesome
00:04:46.140 if they put a block of a couple hundred
00:04:48.200 just for people to get at their prices, that's for sure.
00:04:52.220 And then do you have any thoughts
00:04:53.140 on how much FIFA is actually ending up taking from the city?
00:04:55.860 That's a good question.
00:04:57.040 I'm sure they're raking in way more than we know, that's for sure.
00:05:01.120 I've heard that politicians were getting free tickets to the games.
00:05:03.980 Meanwhile, people in the city...
00:05:05.180 Oh, the city of Toronto, come on, man.
00:05:09.620 You guys are going to take away X amount of tickets
00:05:12.080 from the stadiums that we're supposed to go see the games at
00:05:16.280 and then resell them for three times the prices
00:05:19.040 so that you can build up your money?
00:05:21.260 And then you put that thing about that new law,
00:05:24.360 their new regulation about how it's illegal to sell tickets for concerts and things at like
00:05:31.080 more than the price of the actual event we put an exception on the fifa world cup especially
00:05:36.920 because you have an allocated set that you want to resell all that rise back years yeah i'm a big
00:05:42.920 soccer fan i i go to bmo a lot like and it's just a disappointment it's just a disappointment to see
00:05:49.240 how much tickets were.
00:05:51.000 I mean, they just priced out the average fan.
00:05:53.740 And to me, whoever went for these games
00:05:57.100 were actual fans of the countries that came out,
00:06:00.740 like people who flew over here, or people who are here
00:06:04.140 who are wealthy enough to support their country
00:06:07.100 and go see them.
00:06:08.180 But the average fan just.
00:06:09.880 While many Torontonians enjoyed the global spotlight
00:06:12.200 that the World Cup brought to the city,
00:06:13.980 others had some pressing concerns about whether or not
00:06:16.040 the money could have been better spent elsewhere.
00:06:17.940 Others pointed to pressing local challenges, such as the city's homelessness crisis,
00:06:21.700 and wondered if the massive amount of spending could have been better directed to more immediate needs at home.
00:06:25.860 Now that Canada's out of the Games, people are looking forward to the England vs. Argentina match,
00:06:29.860 and the debate of the sunken cost vs. the value that the Games brought to the city continues.
00:06:34.340 So we're going to ask you, the viewers at home, what do you think?
00:06:36.740 Was it worth it to bring the Games to Toronto this year?
00:06:38.980 For Western Standard, I'm Geoff Knight, signing out.
00:06:47.940 You