Michael Taube: Should Canada Have Given the (Golden) Boot to FIFA and the 2026 World Cup?

Commentary When Canada, the United States, and Mexico combined forces to bid on holding the 2026 version of the FIFA World Cup, many people were intrigued. When this united bid beat out Morocco by a vote of 134-65 at the 68th FIFA Congress in Moscow on June 13, 2018, their intrigue quickly turned into euphoria. I was among them. The game of football—or, as it’s more commonly known in this part of the world, soccer—is one of many sports I’ve followed closely since I was young. Hosting the World Cup would be a unique experience for Canadians to watch the best football players on the planet participate in the sport’s premier tournament in their own backyard. Toronto and Vancouver were chosen to be Canada’s host cities. The federal government recently earmarked $104 million for Toronto to help with its six World Cup matches. It was difficult not to imagine an economic windfall with respect to travel, tourism, and the like....