How Vancouver stopped worrying and learned to love mega-events

Players line up before the FIFA World Cup match between Canada and Qatar at BC Place Vancouver on June 18, 2026 in Vancouver, British Columbia. | Emilee Chinn/Getty Imagesspan>

VANCOUVER — On the opening day of the 2010 Winter Olympics, protesters marched to BC Place, the culmination of a decade-long fight over whether Vancouver had room for a global sports mega-event. But on Thursday, as Canada prepared to play the most important match in its soccer history, the streets around BC Place were free of protesters — filled only with gleeful fans in patriotic red and the occasional dishdasha of the Qatar Football Association’s traveling contingent.

“It’s kind of a nothing-burger,” observed Am Johal, a leader of the city’s anti-Olympics movement, as he walked through the Downtown Eastside hours before kickoff on the World Cup’s second match day. In 2010, the scruffy, historic neighborhood was site of the greatest pre-Olympic friction along lines of conflict that define the modern North American city — between new transplants and existing residents, tourists and locals, police and civil-rights activists, global capital and local resistance.

Now, however, Johal was carrying a fiscal conservative’s laments rather than those of the community organizer. Canada’s governments were projected to spend over $1 billion to host World Cup matches in Vancouver and Toronto, with a roughly even split between funds coming from the federal budget as opposed to provincial and local ones. More than 70 percent of voters in both cities told pollster Angus Reid that it was not worth the public cost.

“I think if the government is looking to spend a billion of public funding related to economic and social benefit, it should really do a proper opportunity cost,” said Johal. “If there’s a massive public subsidy being done to groups that are unaccountable to the broader city — if these things are going to go ahead — why is public money going into them?”

Those were arguments Johal made when Vancouver voters were asked in November 2002 to weigh in on the merits of an Olympic bid. Almost two-thirds of those casting ballots in the municipal plebiscite voted to proceed. But over the course of the decade, as the games grew near, the coalition of skeptics appeared to grow. (The Vancouver Sun dismissed them as “whiners and grumble-bunnies.”)

There were anti-gentrification activists who feared that an Olympic Village and other new developments would price out renters and displace property owners. Anti-consumerist radicals, many with ties to the Vancouver-based magazine Adbusters, saw it as a corporate spectacle. Civil libertarians anticipated heavy-handed police measures to clear streets of the homeless and drug users. (Vancouver is home to North America’s first supervised injection facility.) Environmental activists and tribal groups, who hold disproportionate sway in British Columbia’s politics, sought to protect what they said was unceded aboriginal land.

Vancouver’s anti-Olympic resistance defined a new era around the politics of sporting mega-events, inspiring similar movements worldwide. But evidence of that legacy is likely to be scarce on the streets of Vancouver tomorrow — when Canada’s surging national team is back at BC Place for a crucial encounter with Switzerland. The city enacted “FIFA Bylaws” designed to give police specific tools to use against street vendors and buskers and remove advertising that interferes with the World Cup sponsorship deals.

The clearest indication why may have come from Prime Minister Mark Carney’s itinerary before last Thursday’s match. He appeared with BC Prime Minister David Eby to announce a government plan to buy up unoccupied Vancouver condos, a policy being criticized as a “bailout” that represents a major departure from the concerns that previously drove anti-gentrification worries in one of the world’s most expensive cities to live.

In 2010, Eby had been the anti-Olympics movement’s most prominent spokesman. He became British Columbia premier in 2022, the same year that Vancouver offered itself up to host World Cup matches following a long spell of disinterest shaped by the Olympic experience. Now he is with those inside BC Place, rather than outside. Eby spent Thursday’s match greeting sports executives who lobbied him to make a new commitment to the Vancouver Whitecaps franchise that joined Major League Soccer the year after the Olympics. (Eby’s office did not make him available for an interview.)

“We’re so excited to be hosting,” Eby said in one social-media video. “And we’re so excited to have a win under our belts.”

Welcome to POLITICO Forecast. For the next five weeks, Forecast will showcase daily coverage of the World Cup, with a global eye to the players looking to win off-field. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at [email protected]. Or contact tonight’s author at [email protected] or on X (formerly known as Twitter) @sissenberg.

THINK TANKS’ WORLD CUP FEVER: Earlier this month, a senior White House official made the rounds with back-to-back appearances at the Atlantic Council and the Council on Foreign Relations.

The issue of Iran came up, as did border security. But this wasn’t Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin or White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller. It was Andrew Giuliani, the head of the White House’s World Cup task force.

Like soccer fans across the globe, think tanks have caught World Cup fever, hosting multiple events and turning out content that pairs the most-watched sporting event on the planet with meaty and sometimes in-the-weeds policy conversations.

“For the council, it’s about our mission, it’s about our membership and it’s about this moment,” said Ben Chang, a spokesperson for CFR, which has done three soccer-related events this year.

The council’s June 9 event with Giuliani also featured the bipartisan heads of the Congressional Soccer Caucus, Reps. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) and Kathy Castor (D-Fla.).

Earlier that same day, Atlantic Council CEO Fred Kempe opened his one-on-one with Giuliani by asking whether to call the sport soccer or football. Giuliani said “soccer” for now but joked that it’s a “dynamic situation” because President Donald Trump seemed open to the case for “football.” Then they got into more substantive questions about security.

Other think tanks have also been producing World Cup-theme briefings. The Center for Strategic & International Studies framed the 16-city tournament as “a magnet for terrorists of all stripes.”

Asked why the center was focusing on a soccer tournament, Daniel Byman, the director of the center’s warfare, irregular threats and terrorism program, said it’s simple.

“CSIS tracks terrorist incidents and tries to analyze both current and potential threats,” he said in an email. “A major sporting event that draws worldwide attention — and lasts a month — involves some risk, and we thought it was important to evaluate it and, we hope, bring some relevant data to the discussion.”

Other think tanks have been able to show off specialized sports diplomacy work. The Wilson Center recently signed a partnership with Pepperdine University focused on the issue and expects to produce more sports diplomacy-related content. Keri Lowry, the Wilson Center’s vice president of global affairs, said both chambers of Congress have introduced legislation to leverage the wave of major sporting events to enhance U.S. soft power and global leadership.

“As Congress’s think tank, the Wilson Center is excited to work on this important work with Congress to showcase U.S. values and culture,” she said in a statement.

Chang, the CFR spokesperson, said soccer gives people a common language, even if they aren’t going to ignore other issues at play.

He recalled being a junior American diplomat at the United Nations. The one time he spoke with an Iranian counterpart was watching the 1998 World Cup match between the two countries on a small TV outside the UN Security Council.

“To my right was a young Iranian diplomat, and at the end of the match we chatted briefly, but only about soccer,” he said. — Ry Rivard

Juan Mabromata/AFP via Getty Images

This monarch cheers on Curacao during its June 20 match against Ecuador in Kansas City, Missouri.

BAD ATTITUDES: America’s stint hosting the World Cup is drawing mostly positive reviews to date, and it couldn’t come at a better time. According to a new report from the Pew Research Center, views of America across the world are worsening and confidence in President Donald Trump’s leadership is dropping, writes Riya Misra.

Pew surveyed 42,000 people across 36 countries between February and May, and found that America has a largely negative impression on the global theater. Only 23% of surveyed adults expressed confidence in Trump’s leadership — eliciting less confidence than Chinese leader Xi Jinping (34%) and Russian President Vladimir Putin (31%). Foreign policy is the biggest pain point for Trump’s international critics, who take issue with his handling of tariffs, Gaza, Iran, Greenland and the Russia-Ukraine war, according to Pew’s findings.

Meanwhile, fewer countries — and long-time allies — believe the U.S. is a reliable partner. In Canada, where 83% of respondents described the U.S. as reliable in 2022, that number is now down to 35%.

In 2023, 60% of Germans said the U.S. considers international interests in its foreign policy decisions. That share has now dwindled to 23% — Germany’s public opinion of the U.S. is “now similar to or more negative than what was measured during George W. Bush’s presidency, when many people in Europe and elsewhere strongly opposed the war in Iraq and other major elements of U.S. foreign policy,” writes Pew.

There are only seven nations where a majority rate the U.S. well — Israel leads the pack, with 81% of respondents viewing America favorably. Some of the country’s lowest ratings come from predominantly Muslim publics, “such as Malaysians, Pakistanis, Turks, and Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.”

Over the past decade, Pew’s polling has found growing concerns about the health of American democracy, A 2013 Pew survey, just as Barack Obama entered his second term, an all-time high of 75% of respondents in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Poland, the Philippines, South Korea and the United Kingdom said the U.S. respects its citizens’ personal freedoms. Since then, declining shares of world respondents believe the U.S. respects its citizens’ personal liberties — and this year, 56% of respondents said the U.S. does not.

Mehdi Taremi of Iran celebrates scoring a goal during their match against Belgium at Los Angeles Stadium on June 21, 2026, in Inglewood, California. | Stu Forster/Getty Images

ADMIN LOOSENS TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS ON IRANIAN TEAM: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is easing the stringent security protocols facing Iran’s national men’s soccer team at this month’s World Cup, report Gregory Svirnovskiy and Sophia Cai.

The team, which has been practicing at a basecamp in Tijuana, Mexico, will now be allowed to arrive in Seattle two days before its scheduled Friday match, a DHS spokesperson told POLITICO. For its first two World Cup games, both played in Los Angeles, the team was allowed to arrive stateside only within just 24 hours of kickoff. Iranian players and staff will still be forced to leave the United States the day the game ends.

“The overall security measures and protocol are the same,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “We remain committed to providing the safest tournament possible for players, staff, and fans alike.”

The loosened guidelines come as President Donald Trump works to convince a skeptical American electorate that peace with Tehran is at hand. And they could serve to placate an Iranian sporting establishment that has accused the American government of fostering an unfair environment throughout the tournament.

Iranian officials have lambasted the U.S. for denying visas to its soccer staff ahead of the World Cup and weighed skipping the tournament altogether when the war first broke out this spring. At the last minute, the team decided to move its training camp from Tucson, Arizona, to Tijuana after the Mexico government offered up the alternative option.

On Saturday, Mohammad Reza Gilani, cultural affairs adviser at Iran’s embassy in Mexico City, declared that Mexico was winning the “match of hospitality” for this year’s festivities, held across North America.

“Infrastructure matters. Stadiums matter. Security also matters,” he wrote in a statement provided exclusively to POLITICO. “But history shows that great hosts are remembered for something deeper: Being able to make the world feel welcome.”

Iran currently sits in second place in Group G, having drawn against both Belgium and New Zealand in its opening matches. If Iran wins its match on Friday against Egypt, the team could depart Seattle on a trajectory to face the United States in the Round of 16.

SPOT THE POL!: That’s King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, who was in Houston earlier this day, rooting for the Netherlands in its match against Sweden. He then traveled to Kansas City to cheer on Curacao, a constituent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands — making King Willem-Alexander its head of state.

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