Western Standard - July 16, 2026


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

Charlie Angus warns of foreign interference in Alberta independence debate Hands off Alberta's electricity

Episode Stats


Length

6 minutes

Words per minute

196.71

Word count

1,344

Sentence count

41

Harmful content

Hate speech

3

sentences flagged


Summary

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

The World Cup brought massive international attention to the city of Toronto, Canada, but did it really pay the bills for the infrastructure, stadiums, and operations? We spoke to Torontonians to find out what they thought of the World Cup and FIFA's handling of the games.

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