The first time I heard that Canada might be bidding for the 2026 World Cup was 5 years ago.
It was 4 years ago when I first asked the CSA, on an It's Called Football podcast, whether they were thinking of a bid. Much to my surprise, the answer they gave made it clear that they were.
Almost 2 years ago, I was told that the bid was happening.
A year and a half ago, former CSN editor-in-chief Ben Rycroft confirmed the bid in an article he wrote for the CBC.
So, it wasn't really a surprise on Thursday when the CSA announced publicly that bidding for the 2026 World Cup was happening. In fact, I had to check to make sure it hadn't been officially announced as the bid was common knowledge in Canadian soccer circles.
It wasn't common knowledge among the general public though, so the reactions were fresh.
They were also mostly misguided. The vast majority of Canadians tend to immediately dismiss the idea this country could host a World Cup. They concluded that largely because Canadians tend to be a self-hating bunch that don't realize they are living in one of the richest places in the world.
Those that give it slightly more thought dismiss the bid based on one of three things: 1) that the men's national team struggles, 2) that we don't have stadiums or 3) that we don't have the political clout/flexible morals that will allow us to win a bid.
Winning a bid is by no means a sure thing, but none of the three points stands up to scrutiny.
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Yes, the national team is horrible at the moment. However, only the biggest cynic in the world would suggest that there is no chance of improving that in the 12 years before 2026, or in the 4 years before the formal bidding starts. The CSA has changed, as much as many don't want to/can't see it, and results at younger levels suggest this current blip is the low point.
As I've written many times before, the mess the senior national team is in right now is a reflection of the disaster the CSA and grassroots were in the late 90s, early 2000s. It will be the seventh anniversary of the Sack the CSA protest this September. A lot has changed since then to make the future more promising, but we're still dealing with the fallout of that era's incompetence.
Don't be blinded by the short-term pain we're going through. So long as the progressive thinkers that are currently in leadership roles aren't derailed (and blindly screaming SACK THE CSA now doesn't help prevent that) things will get better. Maybe not as quickly as people want, but they will get better.
But, the most important factor that makes the national team's standing not matter to the bid is the fact it's irrelevant. There is little to no evidence having a poor national team prevents a country from winning a World Cup bid.
The stadium issue is also mostly irrelevant because the plan would be to build or renovate stadiums after winning a bid. That's typical in any country. It's likely that CFL stadiums (and possibly a NFL stadium in Toronto) would be central to the bid. Tying a bid to the revitalization of those stadiums is smart because it would speak to those (particularly in the west) that believe in the importance of the CFL to Canadian heritage.
If a World Cup provides an opportunity to improve the CFL, the bid has a better chance of being supported by Canadians that don't care about soccer. That's vital because the biggest obstacle this bid might face could be internally. Hosting won't be cheap and there will be a very real and legitimate debate about those costs that will go well beyond the soccer community.
All that said: bottom line is Canada is wealthy enough to easily upgrade the sports infrastructure to the required standards if the country decides it's a priority to do so.
As stated off the top of the article, this bid isn't a new development. Everything the CSA has done over the last 5 years has, at least partially, been with an eye to this.
Canada has worked the politics of this both in an obvious way -- hosting the Women's World Cup and Women's u20s (both of which lose money and neither of which had a legitimate bid other than Canada) -- and in subtle ways. Within CONCACAF and FIFA Canada has been actively cultivating relationships in a way that other, larger, nations that may bid have not.
Many people assume that the U.S. would beat Canada in a bid. The U.S. didn't even get the support of the Caribbean in the 2022 vote. That was partly to do with what was in the envelopes, but it also had a lot to do with the way the U.S. is perceived in the developing world, particularly in Latin America. Hint: it's not positive.
Canada isn't viewed the same way (in fairness, it's also a whole lot of naive for Canadians to think that we're universally loved --take the damn flag off your backpack you wanker -- but we do tend to come in with a clean slate in our official relationships with that part of of the world).
Americans reading this may take offence, but, without a significant change in their approach from last time, the U.S. isn't a threat for 2026. For much of the world, Canada offers all the benefits of a U.S. Cup, without any of the perceived baggage. So, the last thing the CSA wants is to attach themselves to them as part of a joint bid.
(As an aside, I acknowledge that isn't fair to Americans. But, it's naive to ignore those factors).
Add in the fact that CONCACAF is way overdue to host a World Cup, Canada is the only G8 country not to have hosted, and the only country in CONCACAF capable of hosting that hasn't already, and suddenly Canada's bid looks pretty damn viable. Forget arguing if it's insane to even try. The argument should be whether Canada is the front-runner to win.
Do I think Canada can win? Yes, absolutely. Do I think they will win?
I've been consistent in this position since I first wrote about it 5 years ago.
Yes, I think Canada will host a World Cup in my lifetime. I suspect it will be in 2030 though, following a European World Cup in 2026.