Quote:
Originally Posted by suburbanite
I don't want to defend Qatar, obviously I think the whole tournament there is a disgrace, but their capacity is still higher. They are building 5 40,000 people stadiums, a 60,000, and an 85,000 person stadium. Most of Canada's venues would require their maxed out capacities with temporary seating. Most of us probably don't care, but FIFA would probably look down on that. Of course the biggest issue is we lack that massive signature venue to host the finals that can be plastered over all of the marketing material.
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Of that list I gave you, I'm pretty sure all of those venues could be expanded to hold at least 40,000. It might be tough in Ottawa, Hamilton and possibly Halifax depending on what ultimately gets built there, but none of them could be dismissed out of hand. Vancouver can do 55,000, and Montreal about 65,000. Edmonton can be expanded temporarily or permanently to at least 70,000 (I recall the discussion they had about doing that prior to the 2001 IAAFs).
So at most, the only purpose-built stadium you might need is if Canada decides to build a national soccer venue, most likely in Toronto, capable of holding around 75,000 fans. But even that is not really an unreasonable or entirely frivolous expense given that Canada is a well off nation with a growing interest in soccer.