Written by Myles de Jong (he/him) // Community submission

Photography by Andy Poystila (he/him) // Production Manager

Background

City Policy Shortcomings and a Need for Community Mobilization

In response to FIFA’s Human Rights Framework, the City of Vancouver released a draft Human Rights Action Plan (HRAP) in February, 2026. The City described the plan as having been developed through consultation with “many community-serving organizations and other relevant interest holders” (FWC26 Host Committee, 2026a). Community organizations and subject-matter experts, however, raised concerns about the extent to which those most directly affected by the tournament had meaningfully participated in the HRAP’s development (BC Poverty Reduction Coalition, 2026). In fact, the City’s own list of consulted stakeholders notably omitted a number of organizations with longstanding expertise in issues including housing, poverty, public health, harm reduction, and environmental sustainability.

Beyond concerns about consultation, the HRAP raised broader questions about accountability. The plan contained few measurable targets, timelines, or mechanisms for determining whether its commitments would actually be fulfilled. This was striking given Vancouver’s experience with the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, for which the city and its partners secured 27 explicit legacy commitments through the Inner-City Inclusive Commitment Statement. In comparison, Vancouver entered FWC26 with considerably less clarity about what would remain for residents once the tournament was over.

Voor’s “Munch!” Policy Workshops

In an attempt to create a space for critical dialogue and collaborative policymaking in the months preceding FWC26, Voor Urban Labs hosted a series of five “Munch!” workshops examining how the City’s planning for the World Cup intersected with longstanding urban policy issues. Bringing together diverse public stakeholders, the workshops created a collaborative space to ask what was being included—and what was being left out—of the City’s approach to sustainability and human rights.

Throughout these workshops, participants examined the City’s HRAP in depth. Together, these discussions were intended to develop a set of policy standards and accountability measures that could help ensure that the approximately $700 million in public investment associated with Vancouver’s World Cup mitigated human rights violations and produced tangible benefits for residents, as well as to create a space for both critique and political imagination.

The FIFA Impacts Conference

Building on the groundwork laid throughout the Munch! Workshops, on April 29th, 2026, 110 participants gathered to discuss the potential impacts and legacies of the FWC26 in Vancouver. The group in attendance was comprised of student researchers and academics from the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and Capilano University, community organizers and policy stakeholders from Vancouver and other host cities (Toronto, Atlanta, New York, Miami), and key speakers from the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB), Curacao Football Federation (KFF), Fédération Internationale des Associations de Footballeurs Professionnels (FIFPRO), as well as the Canadian Secretary of State for Sport. The morning session was hosted by Canadian Olympian Catriona Le May Doan.

The timing of this conference was deliberate – as FIFA leadership and representatives from its 211 member associations gathered blocks away to make decisions about the future of the global game, the conference created a parallel space for those living with the local consequences of FIFA’s decisions to articulate their own priorities. Here, participants reflected on the issues raised through the Munch! workshops, shared experiences from their own work, and considered what policies or interventions could have produced more equitable and lasting outcomes for Vancouver.

Five priority issues emerged from these discussions: community benefits; access to sport; public health and harm reduction; housing, displacement, and Airbnb; and climate justice. Each represents an area where participants identified both significant risks associated with hosting FWC26 and opportunities for the City to pursue a more positive legacy.

Importantly, the conference took place before the tournament itself. So, the recommendations that emerged from those conversations document the problems participants identified, the experiences and perspectives they brought to the table, and the strategies they believed could have strengthened Vancouver’s World Cup legacy. Now that FWC26 has taken place, however, these recommendations provide a record of what community stakeholders were asking for before the tournament began, and a basis for reflecting on what ultimately happened.

 

Priority Issue #1: Community Benefits

Community benefits are the lasting social, economic, cultural, and infrastructural benefits that accrue to local residents (at the community level) as a result of hosting a major event.

Conference Reflections

Participants at the Impacts Conference identified the lack of long-term commitments from the City as a major concern, particularly given the City’s major public investment, which officially rose to over 600 million dollars (not including the costs for additional security operations and construction of the PNE amphitheatre). As one participant suggested, the word legacy should inherently refer to impacts that extend beyond the conclusion of an event:

“If you’re creating safety, and it’s just for FIFA, is it even a legacy?”

Others questioned who ultimately benefits from major public investments in the city, particularly when access to the event itself is shaped by affordability and when many local residents experience its costs without sharing equally in its benefits:

“Who is the city for? Is the city for roving capital that globally circulates and lands wherever it pleases, or is the city for people who live in it and who need to survive there?”

Strategic Recommendations

• Call for a full-time FIFA Secretariat staffer dedicated exclusively to community benefits, as previous consultations were described as the City cherrypicking engagement targets who were not likely to challenge the top-down approach, and repetitive “wallpapering” with no clear link to decision-making.
• Move beyond symbolic “showcase” contracts (like garbage pick-up) and toward systemic procurement offerings that allow local, diverse, and Indigenous-led businesses to actually compete.
• Invest in social enterprise contracts to run public bathrooms in empty retail spaces. If too late, figure out other rental options.

 

Priority Issue #2: Access to Sports

Access to sport is about creating equitable opportunities to participate in sport and to experience major sporting events as part of community life, regardless of income, neighbourhood, or social position.

Conference Reflections

Participants questioned whether FWC26 expanded Vancouverites’ access to sport, or instead created new barriers to participation. The conference’s morning session focused majorly on accessibility to sport. While the Canadian Secretary of State (for Sport), Adam van Koeverden’s, announcement of an over $750 million increase in federal investment for sport generated some excitement, participants emphasized that investment would only matter if it reached the communities that need it most.

“I hope that [this new federal investment] goes into the right channels to make the sport more affordable for everybody.”

Participants also expressed disappointment that many Vancouver residents had few accessible ways to participate in the World Cup itself. For residents of the Downtown Eastside, in particular, concerns about affordability, policing, and social exclusion raised questions about whether the tournament was truly accessible to the communities living closest to its activities:

“… this is not for me. I know FIFA is not for me. It’s not for anybody in this room. If you don’t have [the money] it’s really not for you, you know. So we’ll be having people watching it on their phones down on East Hastings Street.”

“Where can Downtown Eastside residents watch FIFA where they don’t feel judged going into other areas. Like, why can’t we shut down Alexander Street and have FIFA at the Japanese Hall? It is a cooling center. We could close that whole block down. We do it for the Powell Street Festival. Can we get that done [for FIFA]?”

Something else that was reiterated throughout the conference was this notion that the residents of Vancouver want to contribute to a positive social legacy, but that the conditions being enforced by FIFA and the City—including limitations on public watch parties, lack of funding for community events, and strict policing measures—had limited residents’ capacity to create any sort of meaningful social legacy for themselves:

“There’s no lack of people supporting soccer in this town. Just look at the support around the Whitecaps… [but] the lack of engagement, the lack of energy and excitement around [the FWC26] is the worst, because we don’t get the legacy. There’s social displacement, housing displacement. All the negatives are there, and we just have not leveraged the positives.”

Strategic Recommendations to the City of Vancouver

• Create free local viewing spaces, particularly in the DTES, where residents can safely participate in the sporting festivities – similar to what was done at Oppenheimer Park during the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics. These spaces could include watch parties for World Cup matches, cooling centres, and other community-based activities and/or services.
• Invest in new sports programming/activities to promote children’s, youth, and adult soccer participation. 
• Develop a community ticket program to create more affordable pathways for acquiring tickets to matches (e.g. low-cost family tickets for inner city community centre members)

 

Priority Issue #3: Public Health & Harm Reduction

Public health and harm reduction encompass the policies, services, and practices that prevent injury, illness, overdose, and violence while supporting the dignity and safety of people who live in and visit Vancouver. This is particularly urgent in a city at the centre of B.C.’s ongoing toxic drug crisis, where an unpredictable and contaminated drug supply continues to cause preventable deaths.

Conference Reflections

Conference participants emphasized that FWC26 presented both a public health opportunity and a significant set of foreseeable risks. The arrival of hundreds of thousands of visitors created the potential for increased substance use, alcohol-related harms, sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), and pressure on already-stretched health and community services. B.C.’s public health authorities explicitly identified harms from substance use—including toxic drug overdoses and alcohol-related injuries—as a moderate risk associated with the tournament (FWC26 Host Committee, 2026b).

“When there’s an international sports event… the pressure on that neighborhood just increases.”

Participants were particularly concerned about what the tournament spotlight would mean for people living and working in the Downtown Eastside. Rather than treating residents as a problem to be managed or hidden from visitors, participants argued that the City should have strengthened existing harm reduction infrastructure and worked alongside the people and organizations already providing care and support.

This pressure was not articulated as a matter of policing public space, but rather as an ongoing stigma wherein at-risk individuals—namely those who use drugs—become scapegoats when cities prepare for major international events:

“We’re already the subject of fear mongering and scapegoating… our very presence, our very existence, drawing breath will give the city a black eye on the world stage – the rhetoric is all too familiar…”

Strategic Recommendations to the City of Vancouver

• Implement on-site drug checking and peer-led “safe partying” campaigns to prevent an influx-related health crisis. This would also benefit the local community which is confronted by the recent reversal of science-informed provincial health policy concerning tainted drug supply.
• Connect with visiting fan associations (e.g. Switzerland, Australia, Belgium, etc.) to raise awareness around the toxic drug supply crisis in Vancouver, and how/where to get these drugs tested.
• Develop host city information kiosks and/or awareness campaigns (e.g. restaurant-wide QR codes with safety information) for visiting fans RE public health and safety.

 

Priority Issue #4: Housing, Displacement, & Airbnb

Housing, displacement, and short-term rentals are closely connected in a city already facing a severe housing shortage and extremely low rental vacancy. Major sporting events can intensify these pressures by increasing demand for temporary accommodation, encouraging landlords to convert long-term rentals into short-term units, and displacing unhoused residents from highly visible public spaces.

Conference Reflections

Participants raised concerns that FWC26 could accelerate existing patterns of displacement, particularly for low-income renters and unhoused residents. The pressure to accommodate international visitors can make marginalized residents themselves targets of “clean-up” efforts and public-space management, as well as put them at risk of unwarranted evictions in favour of profitable short-term rentals for landlords.

The idea is that you need public space to organize the games… so you’re going to take one population the organizers do not desire, and they’re going to replace it with the population they love more.”

Discussions at the conference highlighted how preventing displacement requires proactive measures—not simply responding to violations after renters have already lost their homes.

Strategic Recommendations

• Establish a Dedicated Tenant Hotline: The City should fund a community-led portal or hotline (potentially in partnership with a subject-expert community organisation) to provide immediate legal support and information to renters facing pressure or eviction from landlords intended to flip units to Airbnb.
• Accountability of data: Require private sector companies like Airbnb to share real time data on listings to ensure accountability and compliance agreement.
• Mandate Transparent Monitoring: The City should facilitate and fund independent community monitoring of “street sweeps” and interactions with unhoused residents to prevent human rights violations under the guise of “public realm management”.
• Hold Landlords Accountable for Illegal Flipping: The City must aggressively penalize landlords instead of merely monitoring compliance to establish a proactive approach including legal action against non-compliant operators (e.g. by setting a fine at an amount which is above the potential value gained by landlords converting long-term units to short-term rentals for the event’s duration).
• Develop a housing strategy for mega events including post-impact assessments of previous events such as Olympics and Expo as well as the upcoming FIFA. As a long-term planning initiative, this strategy could include predefined enforcement measures, tenant protections, and short-term rental controls.

 

Priority Issue #5: Environmental Sustainability

Conference Reflections

The City of Vancouver’s HRAP did not establish any explicit mechanisms for ensuring the environmental sustainability of hosting the FWC26. Though it stated the City would “deliver the event in accordance with its existing environmental and sustainability priorities and policies” (p.34), it was unclear how the City intended to account for the anticipated increase in carbon emissions and other potential harms to the natural environment which would result from hosting the event.

Conference participants were particularly concerned about transportation-related emissions, including extensive air travel by fans, players, and staff across North America. While FIFA promoted FWC26 as its most sustainable World Cup yet, participants questioned the measurability and enforceability of such claims, particularly where environmental impacts were difficult to attribute or offset.

The conference also highlighted the connection between environmental sustainability and human rights. In the context of an exceptionally dry spring, for example, how should the City ensure residents and visitors have access to clean air, clean drinking water, and protection from extreme heat and wildfire smoke?

Strategic Recommendations

• Set measurable environmental targets: Identify specific sustainability commitments within the HRAP, including targets for emissions, waste, water, and resource use.
• Designate clear responsibility for measuring and publicly reporting FWC26’s environmental impacts and carbon emissions.
• Make environmental data public (e.g. by requiring PavCo to make BC Place energy-use and emissions data publicly accessible).
• Plan for climate-related risks by developing contingency plans and public messaging for wildfire smoke, poor air quality, extreme heat, and water scarcity, including clear commitments to access to clean air and drinking water.

 

What we learned…

One of the most important outcomes of the FIFA Impacts Conference was a formal call for further opportunities where residents could openly celebrate, question, and criticize FWC26. This emerged from a collective understanding that meaningful participation must include space for competing perspectives—something largely absent from the City’s approach to hosting the tournament. Ultimately, the recommendations identified through the conference are evidence of how effective a public forum can be in developing creative solutions to complex urban policy contexts, as was the case for FWC26 in Vancouver.

 

Citations

FWC26 Host Committee (2026a). https://www.vancouverfwc26.ca/community-hub/human-rights-action-plan

FWC26 Host Committee (2026b). https://vancouverfwc26.ca/know-before-you-go/need-to-know

BC Poverty Reduction Coalition (2026). https://www.bcpovertyreduction.ca/advocacy-and-impact/press-release-coalition-of-dtes-and-chinatown-organizations-sound-the-alarm-after-the-release-of-vancouvers-fifa-2026-human-rights-action-plan

City of Vancouver (2026). https://vancouverfwc26.ca/community-hub/human-rights-action-plan