The head table with Peter Montopoli at the podium and (from left) Steven Reed, Decio de Maria, Sunil Galati, and John Krestick
Details of the press conference held Saturday December 9, 2017 at 10:30am
at the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel in downtown Toronto.
Attendance was about seventy people with media from all over North America already in town for the MLS Cup Final held later in the afternoon at nearby BMO Field. This press conference was to update those in attendance about progress in the bid for the three biggest North American countries (ie Canada, the USA, and Mexico applying to host the 2026 FIFA Men's World Cup. I saw a notebook waiting on each seat which I thought would be the proposal or at least a summary of the cities still with a chance to host but it was just a souvenir blank notebook. OK let's see what I remember until today. It will be the first World Cup to be held with an expansion to 48 teams! The groups will be divided into 16 groups with only three teams in each group. The first and second place team enter into a round of 16 and the rest of the tournament is one game knockouts. One of the selling points is that the winning team will have to only play the same number of games as the current format--ie seven. It will be an eighty game tournament with US cities hosting sixty games and Mexico and Canada hosting ten games each. The only competing bid is Morocco. The head table consisted of Steven Reed (the president of the Canadian Soccer Association), Decio de Maria (the president of the Mexican Football Federation), Sunil Galati (the chairman of the board of the organizing committee and current present of US Soccer) and John Kristick (executive director of the bid). MC was Peter Montopoli the Canadian Bid Director and General Secretary of the the CSA. Now let's listen in to what was said from the sound bites I captured. I recorded it into four sound files to limit their size which didn't make a smooth transition as some was a gap between start up and they kept on talking. MP3 File...part 1...6 minutes 23 seconds
Opening remarks by Peter Montopoli who welcomes us and special guests in the audience and outlines the agenda. He gives a brief summary of the timelnes followed so far and what is to come. He introduces a short video on the selling points of their bid. The player highlights used were all from the last five years rather than old grainy Pele and Maradonna videos. They included today's modefend players and even squeezed Canada n there obviously from a recent frindly or qualifier as they weren't in the last World Cup (or any since 1986. MP3 File...part 2...2 minutes 49 seconds
A bad transition as this segment cuts in as Steven Reed is discussing Canada's strong hosting of every other FIFA tournament they've hosted ie Women's and Youth based tourneys. MP3 File...part 3...11 minutes 32 seconds
Another transistion made during Decio de Maria's opening remarks in Spanish so no English was missed. Then we heard prepared remarks from Sunnil Gulati and John Krestick MP3 File...part 4...21 minutes 20 seconds
The question and answer segment. Another transistion and my sound starts recording just after Steve Goff from the Washington Post has just asked a question about how the committee will whittle down the number of cities that will host games. Other questions by reporters included what's the Morocco bid like? A complaint by Antonio Totero that the USA hosts too many of the games 60-10-10. Will all games be on natural grass? Well...who knows how far technology will advance! Do any stadiums need to be built/modified? How many will Toronto/Montreal/Edmonton/Vancouver host each? Interesting comment that the stadiums in Mexico were not big enough to hold the entire tournament! from de Maria himself. stadium minimum sizes will be 40-50K minimum. I got in a question too. I asked about the groups being so small that two games and you could be out. Each group will only have three games so will the games for that group be concentrated in just one city? And will a team from the Pacific more likely play on the West coast...somewhat like what happened for 1994 when Ireland 'just happened' to play in a group in Boston? Galati answered and even saw me shake my head when he used the term 'completely random'. Wow if the Canadian team played their two games in one Canadian city even if their Round of 32 game is played in another city would the Canadian soccer message boards ever explode! After that it was a photo op and one on one questions as the conference broke up. Some of the reporters told me I asked a good question and some took the answer as that draw is random but the groups might be 'placed' in certain cities. I could see that bringing in more tourists. Rocket Robin robing@eol.ca
The head table with Peter Montopoli at the podium and (from left) Steven Reed, Decio de Maria, Sunil Galati, and John Krestick
press conference sign
Westin Harbour Castle, Toronto
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