TORONTO -- The bid group hoping to bring the 2026 World Cup to North America has unveiled its 23 candidate cities but not without a crack to its much-ballyhooed unity theme.
The list of potential host cities includes Edmonton, Montreal and Toronto. But Vancouver joined Chicago and Minneapolis in dropping out at the last minute over concerns about FIFA's demands.
The world governing body of soccer will select up to 16 host cities from the list of 23 if the so-called unified bid of Canada, Mexico and the U.S. gets the nod over Morocco at the FIFA Congress in June.
Should North America win the bid, Peter Montopoli, Canada bid director and general secretary of the Canadian Soccer Association, said FIFA is likely to announce the host cities in 2020.
The candidate cities were announced in advance of the final bid submission Friday to the world governing body of soccer in Zurich. That milestone has been overshadowed by complaints over the demands of FIFA, which essentially uses the men's World Cup to bankroll all of its tournaments and operations.
The B.C. government said it could not come to an agreement with the bid committee.
"There's very large concerns with the bid," B.C. Tourism Minister Lisa Beare said. "One of them being with FIFA to unilaterally change the stadium agreement at any point. That adds unknown costs and unknown risks to the B.C. taxpayers."
The Minneapolis group said it had concerns about "future liability and unforeseen changes in commitments." A spokesman for Chicago's mayor said FIFA "could not provide a basic level of certainty on some major unknowns that put our city and taxpayers at risk."
The comments are in stark contrast to the unified bid buzzwords of unity, certainty and opportunity.
Montopoli downplayed the city defections.
"It's part of the process ... required to get down to 16 at the end of the day," he said in an interview. "We're comfortable where we are with the three that are in Canada. There are still some excellent cities left in America and in Mexico, they started with three and will be three through the entire bid process."
"At the end of the day we would wish for every city to be part of it but that's not a reality," he added.
Montopoli declined to speak on the Chicago and Minneapolis situations but said Vancouver "wanted to be part of (the tournament) on their own terms and conditions."
He also said while Vancouver seemed willing to talk about the costs of being a host city, it had neglected to discuss the revenue potential "which would be enormous from the provincial point of view because they own B.C. Place (Stadium) and they own the convention centre."
"That's the unfortunate part of any of the communications that's gone out in the last 24 hours," he said.
The convention centre might have staged tournament-related events.
Montopoli also said he did not believe all four Canadian cities would have made the final cut if Vancouver had stayed in the fold. His hope is the three remaining cities be involved in the tournament.
The united bid plan calls for 10 matches in each of Canada and Mexico with 60 of the 80 games in the new expanded 48-team tournament format to be held in the U.S.
The American candidate cities are Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Cincinnati, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, New York/New Jersey, Orlando, Philadelphia, San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle and Washington D.C.
The Mexico candidate cities are Guadalajara, Mexico City and Monterrey.
The bid group sent bid packages to 41 cities, with 32 continuing with the process. That number is now down to 23.
In addition to the three cities that withdrew, Charlotte, Detroit, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Salt Lake City and Tampa did not make the cut.
The new World Cup competition format will feature 16 groups of three with the top two from each pool advancing to a 32-team knockout. The tournament time period will remain at 32 days.
