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Home / Press Release: Hundreds March Against FIFA’s Impacts on the City as Congress Meets Behind Closed Doors in Vancouver 
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Press Release: Hundreds March Against FIFA’s Impacts on the City as Congress Meets Behind Closed Doors in Vancouver 

For Immediate Release 

On the unceded territories of the Xʷməθkʷəy ̓ əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ilwətaʔɬ/sel̓ílwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh), Vancouver, B.C., Canada — Hundreds of people rallied outside Canada Place today, next door to the Vancouver Convention Centre where delegates met for the 76th FIFA Congress. The crowd denounced FIFA’s impacts on Vancouver residents, as well as its its complicity in international human rights abuses, including the ongoing genocide in Gaza. 

Speakers from the Anti-FIFA coalition highlighted the brutality being imposed on people who rely on public space, workers and sex workers, and the public, all of whom will bear the brunt of FIFA’s impacts. The marchers joined UNITE HERE Local 40 in solidarity outside the Pan Pacific Hotel as they demanded a new contract with fair wages for hospitality workers amidst the reporting of projected high profits the hotel will make during the World Cup.

Speakers pointed out that Vancouver’s experience as a host city — characterized by displacement, exploitation, disruption of services, and increased discrimination — is not unique. Instead, these forces represent a complex pattern of harm that pervades mega sporting events across the globe.

During the 2025 Club World Cup, FIFA’s own human rights reporting mechanism tracked 145 violations, 82 of which were coded as “severe,” and many of which involved interference from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The City of Toronto ended its contract with an emergency shelter so FIFA could book the venue for World Cup 2026 games. 

For the first time, FIFA is asking each host city to submit a human rights action plan – but coalition members say this requirement imposes zero accountability in practice. The City of Vancouver’s draft human rights action plan, released in February, is riddled with weak, empty commitments. Despite recognizing the increased risk of violation of human rights and harm due to “visitor surges,” the draft action plan offers no new protections for the people most at risk. Instead, it relies on pre-existing processes that are already failing Vancouver residents and will not be adequate for a mega sporting event. The Anti-FIFA coalition’s offers to meet with the Host City Committee to share the perspectives of those with lived experience and generate potential solutions — made as early as June 2024, two years ago — were routinely rebuffed.

The human and social costs are already being felt. Roughly 300 people are set to become homeless as three single room occupancy hotels on Granville Street are shuttered in time for FIFA. Police Oversight with Evidence and Research (P.O.W.E.R.) has already observed an increased crackdown on street vendors in the Downtown Eastside (DTES). Meanwhile, the City has installed approximately 200 new surveillance cameras as part of FIFA’s requirements, with footage to be shared with FIFA and private security contractors, raising questions about data privacy. 

Speakers also had pointed words for the Vancouver City Council for its negligent approach to protecting its own residents.

“The presentation of a ‘clean’ and ‘welcoming’ environment for tourists depends on an organized campaign of displacement and criminalization,” says Laura Macintyre, Staff Lawyer at Pivot Legal Society. “Vancouver’s residents are being kicked out of already precarious housing on Granville Street, told they can’t shelter in the two-kilometre radius surrounding BC Place, and consistently displaced by police and bylaw, all to try to sanitize the City’s image.”

Additionally, Vancouver will play host to FIFA as B.C. enters the tenth year of a formal toxic drug supply public health emergency. The impacts of the largest police deployment in the city’s history, alongside a sudden increase in demand on the criminalized drug trade as tourists flock in, will only disrupt the supply further. People who use drugs in Vancouver have expressed concerns for residents and unprepared visitors who may experience fatal and nonfatal overdoses, while the Province and City abandon any semblance of a response. The only overdose prevention site in the downtown core closed at the end of January, and there is no access to a regulated alternative.

All of this comes at a staggering public cost. Estimates in June 2024 from the City of Vancouver put the cost of hosting seven matches between $532 million and $624 million, not including BC Place Stadium costs, while services for the city’s residents continue to be cut or remain chronically underfunded. 

“While all levels of government are stating there is no funding for the social safety net — including desperately needed affordable housing — we see hundreds of millions of dollars being poured into playing host to the World Cup and tourists,” says Chantelle Spicer, Co-Director of the BC Poverty Reduction Coalition. “We are here to remind people that our city is not a playground or destination — Vancouver and other World Cup host cities must be for people first.”

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BACKGROUND

QUICK FACTS

  • The Greater Vancouver Area is currently facing a housing crisis, with a record 5,232 individuals experiencing homelessness in 2025 — a 141 per cent increase compared to 2005. 
  • Evictions were the cause of homelessness for nearly half of respondents in a 2025 homeless count, according to newly released data on historical and demographic trends in Metro Vancouver’s homeless population.

CIVIL LIBERTIES CAN’T PROTECT THEMSELVES

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