I'm usually good for any press conference if it’s held on a Wednesday.

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April 12, 2006 FIFA U-20 Tournament Press Conference in Toronto

Details of the FIFA U-20 World Cup Tournament Press Conference held Wednesday April 12, 2006 at the Fountain Dining Room in Queen Elizabeth Building, Exhibition Grounds in Toronto at 2:30pm.

This would be the unveiling of the FIFA U-20 World Cup Canada 2007 emblem and a report of the FIFA Inspection Committee's review of the facilities where the tournament will take place in 14 months.

The head table was made up of Robert Hunter (vice president of the Air Canada Centre and Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment--MLSE), Joe Pantalone (deputy mayor of Toronto), Jack Warner (FIFA Vice President), Andy Sharpe (president of the Canadian Soccer Association--CSA) and Kevan Pipe (chief operating officer of the CSA).

Some of the accents were pretty thick Pantalone—Italian, Andy Sharpe—Scotch, and Jack Warner—T&T but this is what I made out of what was said:

Joe Pantalone (deputy mayor of Toronto) who must bend the microphone down to his level as he's maybe five feet tall. He welcomes guests, calls Toronto "Home of the World" because of how many national groups have moved here as immigrants. They've built a lot of cultural spots in Toronto but now it's time to build something for cultural 'sports' as part of the city's rennaiscence. 1/3rd of Canada's soccer players are within a (small number) hour drive of Toronto. In July 2007, the world will see Toronto!

Andy Sharpe (pres of CSA)—the FIFA inspection team have traveled for nine days to see the six Canadian host sites of the tourney. They will implement the changes in the next 14 months but they have enough time to do this. This will be the most attended sports event in Canadian history. Canada will put on a world class event.
Victoria has sold out the Brazilian exhibition game. Edmonton has strong pro-Canadian support, Montreal—they have a preferred site of McGill/Molson stadium. For Toronto they have been impressed and excited by the drawings of the stadium. The tournament will leave a legacy of upgraded stadiums. 80% of Canadian soccer players are under 12 years old and it will be their first chance to see heroes. He then introduced the 'champion of (Canada getting) this tournament and close personal friend...

Jack Warner (FIFA VP)—Four years ago he promised if Canada could build a stadium in Toronto they would get the FIFA under 20 tournament. He said he made the same promise two years ago. What's the value of having this event? We should compare it to Germany (much the same as comparing short and tall men side by side).
Germany will have 40 (or did he say 4) billion people watching the World Cup tournament. This (U-20) will be the second biggest event! Their will be a legacy left including the facilities being built in Toronto and other cities and it will have a positive impact of tourism and diversity. It brings an immeasurable 'legacy of hope'—a belief in hope for the kids. This tourney is their training ground. The school of life on how to win and lose brings peace to the world through Canada. FIFA will conduct ongoing inspections to review the facilities. There’s nothing mind boggling in the deficiencies they've found but the challenges to the CSA should be overcome. He's optimistic.
Negatives? Some of the stadiums need proper dressing rooms, lighting, VIP features, and new field surfaces.
Victoria—out of the 161 countries he’s visited, Victoria and Cape Town are his favourite cities and in that 1-2 order too. He was impressed by the warmth of the people at Centennial Stadium. He told the BC Minister of Sport to watch it because the Jamaican Minister of Sport became that country's Prime Minister.
Burnaby (not Vancouver as locals reminded him)—he was impressed by the promises to improve Swangard.
Edmonton—Commonwealth Stadium provided the best ever hosted event when they hosted the Women's Under 20 finals.
Ottawa—the mayor promised to install new artificial turf at Frank Clair stadium. He liked how he could see the harbour from the stands.
Montreal—he's very enthusiastic. They haven't evaluated where in Montreal the games will be played; but for sure the event will be held there!
Toronto—he's left the best for last. He's impressed with the private and public consortium and liked the mayor David Miller whom he thanked for his contributions to their collaboration. The collected efforts of all will make this a success. He then gave Joe Pantalone a FIFA pennant.

Kevan Pipe (COO of CSA)—there is work to be done in retrofits and upgrades to Victoria and Burnaby including VIP sitting, dressing rooms and lighting.
Edmonton—great great great. There's 9 to 10k tickets sold already to the Canada-Brazil exhibition games announced last week.
Ottawa—there will be a FIFA 2 star field turf installation.
Montreal—they have work to do. McGill site would be the best site with a new playing surface.
Toronto—final stage of Canada-Ontario-Toronto governments agreement on contribution funding will be completed in a matter of week. Tremendous.

He expects 500,000 spectators during the tournament. There should be a $150 (?) Million economic impact. There will be over 100 million viewers on televisions watching the final. It will make it the #1 viewed event ever to emanate from Canada (yep bigger than the Calgary Olympics). The corporation of the three levels of governments and private enterprise has worked. This stadium will lead to Toronto being chosen as one of the host cities for the 2009 Gold Cup. Also (for some reason) the women will win a medal in the 2008 world cup in China.

Bob Hunter (MLSE VP)—the construction (of Toronto's stadium) is on time and will come in on budget for the stadium completion. It will be finished 60 days before the tournament. The excavation will be complete within one month. The field surface will be installed by the end of the year. The stadium will host soccer events every year!
The project is a commitment to city building. It will support the growing of athletes. It will be accessible to youth and community soccer events.

John Schumacher (FIFA official)—They now have an emblem for this tournament. There's now a branch on the FIFA.com web site that starts today. They have an Under-20 World Cup section with a complete history of qualifying and stats etc. This is a talent showcase—320 former participants have gone on to play in the World Cup and 21 have gone on and won the World Cup. They will continue to work with Canadian officials.

Now Questions and Answers segment:

Nigel Reid from The Fan 590—for Bob Hunter—What if the stadium is delayed? BH says they are working with DCL Contractors, the largest construction company in Canada. It's a fairly simple stadium design. The prefab stands will be built offsite. There will be two months to spare before the tourney but they won't need them.

Peter Mel from Globe & Mail—How much will the renovation costs (in other cities) and who pays?
KP—It's already budgeted for, the renovations are not great sums of money. Everything will be either completed or designed by this October when the FIFA inspectors are coming back.

Some woman asks—What about the Sports Hall of Fame?
JP answers that the Hockey Hall of Fame moved years ago (they occupied half the building). The city is maintaining/storing the Sports Hall of Fame items until a place can be found.

No other questions: now time for one-on-one interviews.

Vince Ursini (former chairman of the CPSL) is a volunteer for this project helping with the accounting. I asked him what he thought of the CPSL new direction of having ethnic teams. He doesn't want to comment on that but wished them good luck with one warning—have just one riot like Toronto Croatia and Serbia and the whole process will be ruined. Better fine the teams $10,000 each.

Bob Hunter—what about putting Toronto MLS on Maple Leaf TV channel (in the summer when there's nothing else on)? He said they're going to try to get on national television on a station like Rogers Sportsnet. (Jerry Dobson of Soccer Central had asked him earlier which we should see this Saturday, about the MLS team—BH says that MLSE will be releasing info bit by bit over the next sixty days). Vijay (known him for years from the Toronto Lynx but now interning for MLSE) says the team is pretty sure to be named Inter but the team colours will be red and white).

John DeBenedictis (sports store owner)—the band Preconfused broke up! His son is recording a song for the world cup.

It was great to see Canada Press' Neil Davidson after a long time. Now he'll have a great story about this conference I'm sure with proper sentence structure.

I got here on a drizzly day an hour ahead of the meeting and looked around at the stadium site. The Food Building is still standing and the Hockey Hall of Fame (which they used as a motor sports hall of fame after the hockey stuff was moved years ago) was demolished but the Sports Hall of Fame half of the building hadn't been demolished yet. There was actually a small 10 foot hole in the ground but mostly just road concrete had been removed.

On the way home I remembered that no-one asked what Toronto's stadium will look like! I thought the covered easels would be a designer plan of the stadium but it was just the new FIFA 2007 tourney logo. Maybe I'm the only guy who hasn’t seen the plans.

Hey next Tuesday (have to burn off a day's vacation) it’s the Toronto Lynx press conference.

Rocket Robin
robing@eol.ca


Construction site...Canadian Sports Hall of Fame still standing.


Jack Warner speaks as Kevan Pipe listens.


The logo for the tournament unveiled today.

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