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Canada Soccer

While I have not been to KC, it is a strategic location, great sports market and not making excuses.
 
Which other cities submitted bids but didn't make the cut? Chicago? Minneapolis? New Orleans?
 
IanO said:
Not really surprising given that you want the largest, sexiest, best markets... but this really stung for me and all of Edmonton.

That said, congratulations to all of the host cities.
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Nope. Not congratulating Vancouver on shit. This was a 100% political move and they most definitely don't deserve to take these games.
 
davcocom said:
The cities that didn’t make the cut were Denver, Baltimore/DC, Nashville, Cincinnati, Orlando, and Edmonton.
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How in the hell they chose KC over Denver or Edmonton makes absolutely NO SENSE
I also tend to find it kind of egregious that Both Vancouver AND Seattle got to host, but hey, that's probably just me.
 
ChazYEG said:
How in the hell they chose KC over Denver or Edmonton makes absolutely NO SENSE
I also tend to find it kind of egregious that Both Vancouver AND Seattle got to host, but hey, that's probably just me.
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Exactly, or even Orlando. Anyway, it happened. It's disappointing, but oh well, not the end of the world
 
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Um, is the UCP’s ridiculous ask not 100% to blame here? They wanted three Canadian host cities but one of those cities was only going to be given provincial funding if given 5 very specific games leaving 5 games to be split between two much higher profile cities. STUPID. I don’t blame FIFA at all.I would have made the same decision. Once again the UCP found another way to screw over the province.
 
Mattyeg said:
Um, is the UCP’s ridiculous ask not 100% to blame here? They wanted three Canadian host cities but one of those cities was only going to be given provincial funding if given 5 very specific games leaving 5 games to be split between two much higher profile cities. STUPID. I don’t blame FIFA at all.I would have made the same decision. Once again the UCP found another way to screw over Edmonton.
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Fixed that for you.
Although to be fair, I don't think the Alberta NDP financially supported the bid when they were in power.
 
“That proved to be a miscalculation that hurt Edmonton’s bid. FIFA is like the mafia — it isn’t used to having cities make demands of it like that. You don't hold them up at knife point and try to dictate terms to them, which is essentially what the Alberta government did. The fact that the financial support from the province came with strings attached hurt Edmonton’s chances, even though it won political points.”

www.sportsnet.ca

Why Edmonton was left out in the cold as a host city for the 2026 World Cup

Toronto and Vancouver are among the 16 locations that will stage games for the 2026 World Cup. Edmonton seemed like a shoo-in at one point to be named as one of the Canadian hosts and John Molinaro explains why the city was seemingly snubbed during Thursday’s announcement by FIFA.
www.sportsnet.ca www.sportsnet.ca
 
My own thinking is had the NDP financially supported the bid without any strings attached then there wouldn't have been the UCP's financial support with strings attached. Then again, Edmonton was considered a shoo-in at the time.

There's also this:

The current condition of Commonwealth Stadium probably didn’t help Edmonton’s cause, either. It’s an aging stadium that has seen better days and would need to undergo costly upgrades in order to modernize it and bring it up to FIFA’s standards, beyond just replacing the artificial surface with a natural grass pitch.

"Edmontonians have a real sense of inflated pride over Commonwealth Stadium. It’s hosted a lot of big games and events, but we’re looking back at them now through technicolour glasses. Compared to modern-day venues, Commonwealth looks like an old Communist stadium from the Cold War era. It’s a concrete monolith without the creature comforts that most new stadiums have today," Sandor said.

"It was a really great stadium when it opened [in 1978], but some of these new stadiums in the U.S. that are getting World Cup games make Commonwealth look like a venue out of the Stone Age. I think we need a bit of a reality check about that here in Edmonton. We have a vaunted sense of pride about it, but we have to understand that time has passed the stadium by."
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