Anti-immigrant sentiment does not extend to soccer

If the World Cup has done nothing else, it has drawn attention to immigration, and, for once, no-one seems keen on criticizing and protesting.

Nearly a quarter of the 1,248 players at this year's World Cup a representing a country other than the one they were born in, up from just 9% at the 2006 competition. You just have to look at the number of black faces on teams from Canada, USA, England, Netherlands, even notoriously immigration-unfriendly Switzerland, to get a very visual reminder that these countries are highly reliant on immigrant talent (although bear in mind that many of the white faces are also immigrants).

Tunisia, Algeria, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Qatar all have more than half of their squads born elsewhere. The Morocco team is 73% foreign-born, the Democratic Republic of the Congo's is 85%, and little Curaçao's squad is comprised of 97% immigrants. 

There are many compelling immigrant stories behind some of the competition's top players. Canada's star player Alphonso Davies was born in a refugee camp in Ghana to Liberian parents. Australia's Thomas Deng and Nestory Irankunda were both born in refugee camps, in Kenya and Tanzania respectively. Germany's Antonio Rudiger was born to immigrant parents fleeing Sierra Leone's civil war.

The US team in particular has received a lot of attention, given the Trump administration's outspoken views on immigration. Florian Balogun, who scored two of the US's four goals against Paraguay, was born to Nigerian parents temporarily living in New York, making him a 14th Amendment "birthright citizen", which Trump has actively tried to deny (although federal courts are currently blocking his executive order from taking effect). Tim Weah, Haji Wright, Ricardo Pepi, Sergiño Dest, even Christian Pulisic, are all immigrants or children of immigrants, and several others on the squad have immigration somewhere in their stories.

I just find it interesting how little push-back there is against this particular kind of immigration, even from countries like USA, Germany, Switzerland,.Sweden and England, where there is so often a strong and vocal anti-immigration sentiment.

Trump outdoes himself in the vulgarity stakes

It's hard to keep up with candidates for peak idiocy in Trump World, but yesterday's mixed martial arts (MMA) extravaganza on the White House South Lawn has to rank up there.

The very churlishness of using a National Historic Landmark for this kind of spectacle in the first place is unfathomable. But to feature a circus of violence in a monstrous 80 foot tall cage amid a welter of tasteless self-serving advertising (mainly for Trump products and companies) is surely beyond the pale. Just 16% in a Reuters/Ipsos poll thought that the event was appropriate. Even ex-Trump booster and influential blogger Joe Rogan seemed lost for words.

The UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) itself footed the reported $60 million dollar bill for the event, which was nominally in celebration of the USA's upcoming 250th anniversary, but was really for Trump's own 80th birthday. Trump is a big fan of the brutal UFC sport (famously branded by John McCain as "human cockfighting"), and UFC President Dana White is a big fan of Donald Trump. She gave an impassioned speech about how Trump had saved the UFC, notable for its falsification and mendacity (Trump's connection with the organization actually only began in 2016, when he saw it as just another plank of his election strategy).but 

The Event was invitation-only, but there are reports of sponsorship packages (including ring-side seats) selling for $1 million and up. And all this for a piece of vulgar narcissism by a fading president. Oh, yes, and a celebration of America's 250th anniversary.

Canada's most important draw ever?

It's kind of pathetic, but kind of cute in a way. All of Canada is celebrating the one point it won agaist lowly Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 2026 World Cup, what is being referred to in some quarters (and only slightly tongue-in-cheek) as "the greatest draw in Canada's history".

In fact, they really should have won, if they had had just a few minutes longer, or if they had had a few more of their best players back from injury. But that's a lot of "ifs". They squandered several good chances, hit the bar, etc.

But the bottom line is, that single point for a 1-1 tie is more than Canada has ever won in its previous two World Cup appearances (1986 and 2022) put together, and the first time they have not actually lost. So, yes, a big deal, I guess, and arguably a boost towards potentially getting out of the group stages for the first time. (Switzerland would be an unlikely victory, but Qatar ought to be beatable.)

Canada as a footballing nation is still in its infancy. In 2023, soccer was still only the fifth most popular sport in Canada, after hockey, basketball, American/Canadian football and baseball. Compare that to most countries in Europe, South America, Africa, where soccer is almost the ONLY sport, and you get an idea of the kind of obstacle Canada is having to surmount.

That said, soccer has been the fastest-growing sport for several years now in Canada, and is now probably the most played team sport in terms of active participation, especially among youth. But this is still a very recent phenomenon, much of it driven by Canada's increasing immigration population.

Anyway, take it for what it is. At the moment, soccer is very much top of mind here in Canada and, in the popular imagination, the sky's the limit. So: Go Canada!

UPDATE

Just a week later, after Canada beat Qatar 6-0 in their second game of World Cup 2026, all the excitement over extracting a single point and scoring a single goal against Bosnia feels like the concerns of a different age. Canada is now confidently looking forward to the prospect of getting out of the group stage and into the knock-out competition proper.

How their aspirations have changed in a week! At this point, everything that happens is a first. The good news is, the pressure is off. Initial objectives of actually scoring a goal and not embarrassing ourselves have been met, and some. From here on, it's all gravy.

Trump's attendance at Knicks game sheer selfishness

New York Knicks fans are saying that Donald Trump's presence at Game 3 of the NBA finals "killed the vibe", "messed up the flow" and generally "jinxed" the team, when he attended the last game against the San Antonio Spurs.

The Knicks were 2-0 up in the series and on a record-breaking 13-game play-off winning streak, when the Spurs beat them 115-111 in Game 3. Trump was heartily booed whenever his image appeared on the jumbotron, despite his own contention that "it was mostly cheers" (it was mostly cheers when he was NOT on the screen). This was New York, after all - not a big Trump town.

Fans were already up in arms after facing enhanced security screening at Madison square Gardens due to Trump's presence, causing waits of over two hours. Even getting to the venue was a nightmare, with many streets cordoned off and barred to vehicles while Trump arrived in his motorcade to boos and signs saying "Nobody wants you here", "Trump must go", and "Impeach. Convict. Remove." Local businesses, hoping to make a healthy profit from a home game, complained that the streets were deserted and takings were down.

And in the end, the Knicks lost, and a record-breaking run came to an end. Make of that what you will.

Trump may be a long-time Knicks fan, but he really didn't have to go to the game. It was sheer selfishness and narcissism. And it backfired, big-time, on any number of levels. 

UPDATE

A wild Game 4 went the Knicks' way too. Trump did not attend. Are you seeing a trend here?

America's latest World Cup affront

God, the current American administration really knows how to manufacture a public relations disaster out of thin air!

After multiple reports of incidents like the Iranian World Cup soccer team's support squad being denied entry, and even the players being forced to jump through all sorts of hoops just to play the games they have already earned and deserve - why are they even scheduled to play in the US? With games also being played in Mexico and Canada, surely that could have been avoided - now we have a lone Somali referee being denied entry at the last minute.

Omar Artan is an experienced FIFA -approved international referee, and has all his papers in order, including his travel visa. He was named referee of the year last year by the Confederation of African Football, and he would have been the first referee from his country to officiate at such a prestigious event, the honour of his lifetime.

Instead, he was pulled over at Miami airport, subjected to 11 hours of interrogation, and denied entry "due to vetting concerns" by US Customs and Border Protection. He was put back on  plane home. They later "clarified" that the Somalian was refused admission due to "association with suspected members of terror organizations", with no other details being offered.

There has been understandable outrage across most of the world. As a former England player put it: "Every few hours its another story - another story about fans denied, players denied, officials denied, journalists denied, now refs. Is this how the hosts behave really for the greatest game, the greatest tournament in the world?"

So much for Gianni Infantino promising "Everyone will be welcome in Canada, Mexico and the United States". There are those who argue that FIFA has lost complete control of this particular World Cup, and that the scandals from the last two tournaments, in Russia and Qatar, are starting to pale into insignificance at the side of what is happening in the United States.

Canadian politicians have also weighed in, saying that Mr. Artan would be welcome to officiate in Canada. But apparently even that would not be an acceptable solution because all the referees are required to attend a training hub in Florida before the games begin. Ridiculous!

Mr. Artan arrived back in Somalia to a hero's welcome, greeted by MPs, government and football federation officials, social media celebrities, and many of his fellow referees. He has quickly become an icon in his homeland. He took the moral high ground, praising FIFA and vowing to be back refereeing at the 2030 FIFA World Cup in Spain/Portugal/Morocco.

Donald Trump and the rest of his merry band of crooks and thugs have their dirty fingerprints all over this late decision. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the order for this latest indignity came right from the top. Trump has singled out Somalia several times for some of his most offensive insults, calling it "barely a country" and "garbage", and claiming that "they just run around killing each other".

How can it possibly be in America's interests to have the rest of the world hate them so?

FIFA may have miscalculated in Canada

Not only is the upcoming World Cup not going to work out as beneficial to host cities Toronto and Vancouver as advertised, it might not even work out as well for FIFA as they had hoped.

The way these things usually work is: FIFA does pretty much whatever it wants and makes all its big money up front, while the host cities and their citizens carry all the risk and the expense. That's still how it works this time, except that FIFA's policy of charging top dollar for ticket prices may not be quite as effective as usual. FIFA's dynamic pricing policy has resulted in some of the most expensive World Cup tickets ever, and many Canadians are thinking twice about them (and the $17 beers and concession prices that seem to be double or even triple those in some US stadiums).

While Canada was hugely excited by the prospect of holding World Cup games at first, the bloom is off the rose somewhat of late. Less than a week before the first games, hundreds of tickets remain unsold for events that were once expected to be oversold many times over.

Unlike many another country, soccer here is popular but a distant third or even fourth love, after hockey, baseball and basketball. Both Vancouver and Toronto are overwhelmingly cities of immigrants, most of whom have brought their idolization of soccer with them to Canada. But, as a nation, our national pride is invested much more in hockey, even in baseball and basketball, than it is in soccer. Football is not a core part of our national psyche, as it is for so many other countries.

So, there is a certain subset of the population that is socccer-mad, and will pay whatever it takes to watch a world-class display of football, even if that might be Ghana v Panama or Senegal v Iraq. But, past that, the delirium starts to fade, and there has been push-back against what many perceive as FIFA's greed and insensitivitiy. Even bona fide fans feel they are being charged exorbitant ticket prices. Even local hotels are only at about 80% capacity, which is about the same as usual during summer months. (Or according to other stats, less than half full!) So, did FIFA miscalculate?

Embattled FIFA president Gianni Infantino claims that demand for tickets has been ten times that of the last two World Cups added together, but that doesn't seem to have played out here in Canada. Infantino claims that, "there are expensive tickets, yes, but there are also affordable tickets". The face value of the cheapest tickets to the opening game in Canada (the home team versus Bosnia & Herzegovina) starts at over C$1,000, which most Canadian fans (particularly recent immigrants) will find far from affordable. It feels to many residents like they are paying for the games, but still can't attend them.

One Toronto fan summed it up well: "I've given up, and at this point, I don't want to give my money to FIFA. I'm done with them. I get that, while they can control pricing, it feels like an affront to what makes football great: it's a sport for everyone. Accessibility ought to make it easier for fans - especially those living in the host cities - to see the games."

A "sports economist" from Concordia University explains that FIFA is in the business of maximizing its revenues, not of filling stadiums (and certainly not of providing a memorable experience for local fans). Sometimes it makes more commercial sense to sell high-priced tickets than to fill lower-priced seats. The practice from previous World Cup tournaments of making more tickets accessible to local residents has been supplanted this year by the more lucrative strategy of real-time variable pricing models, which it says "aligns with industry trends across various sports and entertainment sectors". As the sports economics prof puts it, "There is no competition, so they can behave in whatever immoral, unethical, improper way they want - unless fans are prepared to walk away." Well, it seems some fans at least have walked away. 

It's thought that, as the date of the first games approaches, the prices of the remaining tickets may drop drastically. But don't bet on on it. This is FIFA at the controls, after all. 

One other wild card in all this is that Ontario recently passed a law, just in time for the World Cup, that bans the resale of tickets at prices above the original face value. So, in theory at least, we shouldn't be seeing resales on StubHub or on FIFA's own resale platform at the kinds of ridiculous prices seen in some other jurisdictions. But ... FIFA is still in charge of those original face values. And regulation and policing of the new law is almost impossible, according to experts.

Meanwhile, FIFA continues to make PR mistakes, further alienating local people. It has banned reusable water containers at the eleventh hour, ostensibly for safety reasons, and only allows fans to bring in one small factory-sealed soft plastic disposable bottle of water. (This was a climb-down after the initial announcement that NO water bottles could be brought in.) After that, they can of course buy FIFA's own high-priced disposable bottled of water to deal with the high temperatures expected during the tournament. Toronto's environmentally-conscious council has complained loudly. 

And don't get me started on FIFA's new "hydration breaks": mandatory three-monute stoppage, one in each halfs  for the players to get a swig of water, something they always used to do during regulat stoppages for injuries and other game interruptions. Players are quite capable of keeping themselves hydrated; these are essentially "TV advertising breaks", and just another source of revenue for FIFA (an estimated $250 million in the USA alone.

FiFA as an organization has never been kess popular. There's even a "Reboot FIFA" campaign underway, looking to deliver "the largest single complaint FIFA will ever have received about the conduct of its senior officials", covering a range of issues including exorbitant ticket prices and the semi-official offering of a peace prize to a notorious war-monger.

For what it's worth, the venerable Sports Illustrated magazine has voted Vancouver the best of the 16 host cities, mainly for the stadium's central situation and accessibility, the good public transportation, the city's walkability, and it's mild weather. Surprisingly enough, Toronto came in at No.3, separated from Vancouver only by Seattle.

Why do people smash things when their sports team wins?

Can someone please explain to me what burning cars and e-bikes and smashing and looting stores has to do with celebrating a sports victory?

After Paris St-Germain beat Arsenal in soccer's Champions League final this weekend, PSG fans went on a rampage in Paris and clashed with police. 219 fans were injured, eight of them seriously. Bus, train and rail services were severely disrupted, and one person was reported dead after an accident on the Paris ring-road (which may or may not have been connected to the riots). Some 6,000 police officers were mobilized this year after similar celebrations in Paris turned violent last year, and 57 of those police officers were injured. In all, 780 people were arrested, with over 450 of them still in custody. 

So, this then is what the French do when their team wins? What is the psychology behind that? Or is it just a function of the amount of alcohol imbibed? I could almost understand it if they had lost and they were frustrated, although it still wouldn't be justified.

Well, it turns out that psychology and sociology do have something to say about these violent revellers. 

For one thing, there is something called the "group contagion effect", whereby the anonymity of being part of a large group makes people feel they can get away with something illegal or dangerous, and generally let loose their aggressive side. After a particularly intense game, people may search for a release from the tension through destructive behaviour. This can quickly spiral out of control in a large crowd of other like-minded people, and soon the usual rules and norms get overridden.

There's also an aspect of crowd behaviour called "excitation transfer", where extreme happiness can turn into extreme aggression as one part of the brain gets over-stimulated and over-excited. A state of high physical excitation (increased heart rate, adrenaline production, etc) can continue even after the initial arousal, and the body's leftover energy can become misattributed or transferred to a different emotional stimulus.

Well, maybe there are perfectly good psychological explanations for this stuff, but it still doesn't make any sense to me!

Toronto's World Cup hosting not as rosy as portrayed

Toronto and Vancouver were sold a bill of goods when the two Canadian cities decided to bid for hosting some of the FIFA World Cup 2026 games.

It's happened time and time again that countries and cities get all gung ho about major sporting events like the Olympics and the World Cup. It's such an alluring idea, to invite the world to your city, to help celebrate one of the biggest international sporting events. Can you feel a "but" coming?

BUT ... however much cities and countries try to convince themselves that hosting World Cup events is a good idea, a no-brainer even, history tells us that it's really not. 12 of the last 14 World Cups have proven to be financial busts for the host countries, in some cases spectacularly so, like Brazil 2014, which precipitated a national economic emergency. (The Olympics is very much the same: the last Olympics to actually pay its way was Los Angeles in 1984.) 

While Toronto and Vancouver opted in to this risky venture, it's notable that Montreal and Chicago both considered participation and decided against it, citing excessive projected costs and FIFA's operations conditions and lack of transparency. (Edmonton and Washington DC both had their bids rejected.)

Part of the problem is cost overruns, which are now standard in World Cup bids. When Toronto initially bid on the World Cup, back in 2018, it estimated a cost to the city's taxpayers of $30-$45 million. Just 8 years later, that cost has ballooned to well over $300 million. If a city got it that wrong for any other development project, it would be considered a national scandal and heads would roll. But, because it's the World Cup, and therefore, by definition, a Good Thing, such overruns are merely swept under a very large carpet. 

According to Canada's Parliamentary Budget Office, the country as a whole is sinking over $1 billion into just thirteen World Cup games (six in Toronto, and seven in Vancouver), yielding a cost per game of some $186 million. The federal government is to cover $473 million of that, with the rest coming from other levels of government. Different estimates show Toronto on the hook for $380 million, and Vancouver an eye-watering $578 million. It's hard to see that as money well spent.

Another element of the problem is the way that FIFA operates. Cities are expected to pay for the "privilege" of hosting the event, while FIFA reaps all its money up front. FIFA also makes many very specific, and very expensive, demands on host cities - free transit for ticket holders, labour law exemptions, a ban on competing events, VIP access to hospitals, preferred procurement status for corporate partners - as I have kvetched about before. (UPDATE: Usually totally inflexible, FIFA has proved surprisingly flexible on these requirements as cities have pushed back: FIFA has now backed down on ALL of these requirements in the cases of Toronto and Vancouver at least. So, what, they were just trying it on?)

And finally, there is the revenue side. The usual justification for putting on these big events is that they are "investments" in the tourism and hospitality industries. Some proponents have been claiming, with little or no justification, that Canada's participation in the World Cup will generate up to $4 billion in potential revenue and economic benefits. FIFA itself puts that figure at $940 million, but even that seems a stretch. These benefits are notoriously difficult to prove, and even harder to predict.

Yes, the World Cup provides a showcase for host cities (although, remember, that can also have negative repercussions if not everything goes perfectly). In practice, these events typically generate a short-term boost to tourism, but very little long-term benefit. Remember as well that this year's World Cup is spread over 16 different cities across three countries, thus diluting and dissipating any tourism boost. 

And one other consideration you might not have thought about: some visitors that might have come to Toronto for other sports events, music concerts, conferences, or just to explore the city and its culture, may actually put that visit on hold while all the World Cup craziness is underway, a corollary that usually gets conveniently forgotten.

Now, I'm not necessarily saying that Toronto and other cities were just plain wrong to bid for World Cup games. The Globe's Cathal Kelly describes the emotional argument for it with his inimitable panache: "At some point, it's not about the money. It's about where we see this country in the world... Along with keeping us solvent and healthy, the point of a government is to, within reason, maximize the amount of fun in its citizens' lives... Exciting the nation's 10-year olds has to be worth at least a billion." He also argues that, in a world getting meaner by the day, it's our duty to step up, money be damned; otherwise, nobody would ever do anything worthwhile, and we'd turn into a nation of "cheapskates and philistines".

That said, personally, I would still have preferred not be involved (go on, call me a cheapskate and a philistine). Falling into a billion dollar hole without eyes wide open is foolhardy in the extreme. Part of having eyes wide open is acknowledging that we'll probably be paying for this boondoggle for many years to come.

Does MLS own the Vancouver Whitecaps?

Rumour has it that Major League Soccer (MLS) is considering relocating the Vancouver Whitecaps franchise to somewhere more profitable, like maybe Las Vegas. They say the "long-term health" of the league is at stake. They say that "stadium economics, scheduling restrictions and a lack of government and corporate support" will make keeping the Whitecaps in Vancouver very difficult.  

The current owners, a group of Canadian businessmen, have put the team up for sale, although they do say their priority is to keep the team in Vancouver. There are currently only two Canadian teams in the MLS league, Toronto (added as an expansion team in 2007) and Vancouver (added in 2011), and losing one would be pretty hard for the Canadian psyche. 

Although the Whitecaps had their most successful season ever last year, only falling to Miami in the championship game, and they currently sit second in the league this year, their on-field success has not translated into all-important revenue, in which stakes they sit at the very bottom of the league, trailing much worse clubs in the middle of the standings.

I confess the whole idea of "moving" a team from one city to another seems bizarre to me, coming from a British background. I can''t imagine "moving" Manchester City to Blackpool, or Chelsea to Portsmouth!? But I guess I just don't understand the franchise business model of North American sports. Certainly teams (or franchises) do get moved all the time: the Brooklyn Dodgers became the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Montreal Expos became the Washington Nationals, the Washington Senators became the Texas Rangers, etc, etc.

But what is the role of MLS in this current case? Google AI says that "Major League Soccer (MLS) does not own the Whitecaps directly, though it operates under a single entity structure where owners are investors in the league". The best explanation I can find for this confusing claim comes from Medium.com: "Unlike the National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB), National Basketball Association (NBA), and National Hockey League (NHL), the MLS is considered a Single-Entity business model. This structure allow the teams to be considered "individual investors" of the league, allowing Major League Soccer to be the sole owners of all 29 teams and not be considered a Limited Liability Corporation (LLC)", although the article then goes on to question the legality of this Single-Entity status.

So, clear as mud. I still don't know how it works, but it does seem that MLS somehow has "full autonomy" over business deals, exclusivity player negotiations, and many other aspects. Weird.

Different attitudes of US hockey players to Trump's politicization

It's well-known that Donald Trump has no shame, no scruples, and these days neither does anyone else in his administration nor his social media team. They seem to think that anything goes, no limits, because that's the way Trump thinks. It's hard to know if Trump says "make me something like this", or if the functionaries come up with the daft ideas themselves (my guess is the former: Trump instigating but avoiding direct culpability).

So, since the unfortunate win by the US men's and women's hockey teams over Canada in the Winter Olympics - against the run of play, against the skill levels, let it be known - Trump has made a point of weaponizing the national hockey teams against Canada, partly because he's only seven years old (so there!) and partly because, well, because he can. Some of the team members seem into it, but some are distinctly uncomfortable at being used in this way.

For example, Brady Tkachuk - US star player and Ottawa Senators captain - is distinctly angry at being used in an AI-doctored anti-Canada video. "I would never say that. That's not who I am", he says, defensively. Now, I have little love or respect for either of the Tkachuk brothers - they are skillful but sneaky and nasty players - but to have your words twisted in that way is tough. And he has to work in Canada, with a demanding and censorious home crowd. 

He also tried to distance himself from Trump's tasteless locker room call after the gold medal match, and insisted that the unidentified recorded call of "close the northern border" was definitely not him.

Another US star, Auston Matthews, captain of the very Canadian Toronto Maple Leafs, apparently didn't think twice about accepting the invitation to Trump's White House swagger-fest - that part is pretty traditional, after all, for better or worse - although he did draw the line at appearing at the much more political State of the Nation address, unlike some of the other Americans.

A bunch of the American men's team, though, did think twice about attending Trump's politically-charged schmooze-a-palooza. In all, five members of the gold medal-winning US team skipped the traditional White House invitation. Coincidentally (or probably not), a majority of these men had Minnesota connections.

The US women's team, on the other hand, declined the White House en masse, unwilling to be used by Trump for his own nefarious political purposes. They also reacted publicly to Trump's objectionable joke about his "having to" invite the women's team (suggesting that they are much inferior, despite their just-as-valuable gold medal), calling it a 'distasteful joke".

Team USA Women 1 : Team USA Men 0.

But, more to the point, why does Trump have to be so divisive and offensive and so totally tone-deaf. He didn't have to make (or rather, have made, because I'm pretty sure he's not capable of doing it himself) an anti-Canada video with fabricated audio using one of America's top sportsmen without his permission. He didn't have to make tasteless macho jokes at the expense of one of the world's most dominant sports teams. But he does it anyway, because ... what? Because he childish and shallow? Is that all that's going on? Because he thinks it will play well with his far-right voting base? Who knows?

Canada agonizes over Winter Olympics performance - again

It's pretty widely agreed that Canada didn't have the Winter Olympics it wanted in Milano-Cortina 2026.

Canada ended up with 21 medals in total, substantially less than the 26 it earned in Beijing 2022 and, at eighth place, the first time the country has finished outside the top five since 1994. Listed according to gold medals won, we are even further down the table. The 29 medals of 2018 and the 14 golds in 2014 seem like a distant memory.

Predictably, the outcry comes that Canadian sports is underfunded. The boss of the Canadian Olympic Committee was of course one of the loudest whiney voices: "Canadians deserve a sports system that is properly funded. National sports organizations are stretched unbearably thin." It happens every time. (Actually, it happens even if the country does well!)

But it's hard to blame it on funding. Nathan MacKinnon didn't miss an open goal because of underfunding. Funding issues didn't cause Cassie Sharpe to crash and injure herself in the freeski halfpipe, or Mark McMorris to miss the whole Olympics due to injury. And you can't blame underfunding for all the times Canada came fourth not third. These things happen. And even if they seem to happen disproportionately, you still can't blame it on funding.

Adam van Koeverden, an Olympic multi-medalist himself and now the Liberals' minister for sports, denies that Canadian sports are underfunded, pointing to a 45% increase in the athletes' assistance program since 2018, and a more than doubling of the government's sports budget over the last 20 years. Like everything else, sports are competing for scarce government funds.

It's hard to quantify the effect of, and the need for, funding for Olympic performance. For that matter, it's hard to know how important a good showing at the Olympics actually is, in the scheme of things. Maybe that money is better spent elsewhere? But those who really care are convinced that it's critical. 

Here's an eye-opener, though: fifteen out of the twenty-one medals Canada won at the latest Winter Olympics were won by people who are funded through an organization called Great To Gold, a project established by two Toronto business leaders which canvasses funds from private and corporate backers for Canadian athletes who have been handpicked as having Olympic medal potential. But there's the rub: if they had medal potential anyway, maybe they didn't need the extra funding, maybe it made no difference? Like I say, this stuff is really hard to quantify.

Likewise, unlike Canada, many countries offer substantial incentives for medal wins. That's nice for successful athletes, but it's hard to believe that it has an appreciable effect on performance. Surely, all athletes at the Olympics Games are going for gold. Italy had by far the biggest incentive payout, and they did do very well. But they were also the host country, which must factor much more highly in performance.

Sure, Canada is no Norway, a winter sports powerhouse despite its tiny population. This is not so much due to funding, but perhaps more to the way winter sports are an integral part of Norwegian culture, although funding too has escalated in the country and Norway's results have spiked accordingly. Furthermore, although Norway has a tiny population, it has one of the world's highest standards of living, with good healthcare and education. All of this helps.

Neither is Canada the USA, the richest country in the world with one of the world's largest populations. But, in the scheme of things, we really don't do that badly. Yes, we should have won the men's hockey gold, after outplaying the Americans for almost 60 minutes. But we didn't, and maybe that's OK.

Un-curling-like language at the Winter Olympics

I couldn't help but smile at the indignation and outrage at the Winter Olympics mens curling competition, as the Canadian team is once again accused of cheating by opponents Sweden.

Curling is still considered, I suppose, a gentleman's game, and has no truck with newfangled ideas like video replays and what have you (although the handles of the stones are now electronic and give a green light when the stone is correctly released before the "hog line"). But Sweden's Oskar Eriksson accused Canada's Marc Kennedy of "double-touching" the stone, i.e. giving it a little tap with a finger after release. 

Most curlers would say that there is little or no way this could actually help the shot - given that it is still 100 feet from the rings - but it is technically illegal if spotted. In this case, it was not spotted, and when the referees did spot-checks after the allegations, no transgressions were identified (surprise!). Canada went on to win 8-6.

As much as the allegations of cheating, though, the outrage was mainly for the "unsportmanlike" language used on the ice sheet. Eriksson's accusations were muscular and vigorous, but Kennedy's defence was events more so, concluding with "just fuck off" and "I don't give a shit". Most un-curling-like language!

Despite Kennedy's vigorous claims that he has never ever done such a thing, video replays do show him doing exactly that thing. The Switzerland team also accuses him of the same in a previous match. Hell, even the Canadian women's team is getting in on the act. Canada is definitely the bad guy here. 

Kennedy has since been given a verbal warning for his language, and umpires are paying special attention to possible cheat moves as the competition approaches its climax. It all seems a bit disingenuous, though. They should hear the language routinely used in the average hockey game!

Olympic chutzpah or hubris

Lyndsey Vonn is one of the most successful downhill skiers ever, and is looked on as almost god-like within the sport. Since her latest performance at the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics, she can now add "most controversial" to her lengthy list of achievements.

Vonn is now 41 years old and has not raced competitively for years. But, for whatever reason - call it chutzpah, or call it hubris - she wanted more. Then, she suffered a ruptured ACL ligament during practice just 9 days before her Olympic race, which would have ruled most normal people out for months. Vonn, however, chose to race anyway, and wiped out spectacularly just 13 seconds into the race, resulting in a shattered leg and requiring her to be airlifted out of the ski resort.

Cue the controversy. Many people opined that she should have known better, and had no business taking part in a top-level race with a torn ACL. Her fellow Olympic skiers, however, rushed to support her decision, arguing that she is a grown-ass woman and capable of making her own decisions, however inexplicable they may seem to the rest of us. One or two are even arguing that the crash was not due to the ruptured ACL at all, just a freak accident that could happen to anyone anytime, which seems like a bit of a stretch to me.

My first reaction was firmly in the former camp: "What the hell was she thinking?" But, on reflection, maybe her supporters are right too: it was her call, however ill-advised. Maybe she denied some young greenhorn a chance for their first Olympic experience in her solipsistic quest for vainglory. Maybe she disrupted the competition unnecessarily. But that was her right, arrogant and presumptuous though it may be.

Interestingly, there was another (similar but less dramatic) example of iffy decision-making later in the Games. Dutch speed skater Joep Jennemars was expected to medal, but was (accidentally) impeded during a crossover by a Chinese skater and noticeably slowed down, resulting in Wennemars missing out on the medals. The unfortunate Chinese skater was disqualified, but Wennemars was offered the chance to do the race again, on his own, half an hour later.

Wennemars could have declined - easy for me to say! - putting it down to experience. These things do happen in the sport; all speed skaters know that, and most have experienced it at some point in their careers (although not necessarily in an Olympic final!) But Wennemars chose to re-skate, without an opponent to pace himself against, and still tired after his first race. Predictably, his second race was even slower than his first, and everyone was left dissatisfied, especially Wennemars.

Should he have accepted the re-skate? Probably not. But it was his decision to make, and these are ultra-competitive people, remember, unwilling to accept "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune". They didn't get to the elevated levels they enjoy today by giving up, on anything, ever. These are almost superhuman individuals, and they live by their own rules.

Should we be worried about trans women in sports?

The issue of transgender women in sports keeps raising its head from time to time. My wife's personal trainer has been banging on to her about it for years now. Right wingers like Donald Trump and Danielle Smith raise the issue whenever they remember. (I'm not totally sure why it's mainly a right-wing issue.) JK Rowling continues to dismay her otherwise loyal following every now and then by bringing the matter up.

The latest blow-up occurred when Skate Canada, Canada's national skating body (and independent of the federal government), announced that it will stop holding major national and international events in the province of Alberta due to Alberta's recently-legislated ban on transgender women competing in women's sports in the province, as the ban contravenes Skate Canada's "national standards for safe and inclusive sports".

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who went to the lengths of using the notwithstanding clause to get her legislation passed (as it would otherwise have contravened the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms), of course shot back that she thought that Skate Canada's decision was "disgraceful" and that she expects "they will apologize and adjust their policies" once they realize the error of their ways. (As it happens, there are no upcoming national or international events scheduled to take place in Alberta anyway for the foreseeable future.) 

Smith also said that the decision was "offside with the international community, including the International Olympic Committee, which is moving in the same direction as Alberta". This is disingenuous, shall we charitably say, as is so much that Danielle Smith says. In fact, the IOC is just in the process of reviewing its position on female sports, and has made no pronouncements either way. Currently, it leaves specific rules to to the various international federations for individual sports, although there are rumours that it may be moving towards some kind of ban later next year. Whether that will be a blanket ban or something based on testosterone counts is not clear. The International Paralympic Committee, of course, will probably come to very different conclusions.

So, is this a real issue? Or is it just a straw man/woman, one that the right wing loves to mobilize every now and then to placate its more militant members? How many people does it affect anyway? Well, San Francisco's Office of Transgender Initiatives has produced its own handy summary of the situation. And yes, I know they have their own axe to grind, or at least their own confirmed views, but at least they are attempting to create some perspective on a very divisive issue.

First off, an estimated 1% of the US population identify as transgendered (more than I would have thought), and I assume a similar proportion in Canada and western Europe. Very few of them, though, have any interest in sport: 0.002% of college athletes are trans, and less than 0.001% of Olympians. This is a vanishingly small percentage to have engendered such a maelstrom of political attention. 

It certainly seems to have attracted significantly more attention than much more worrying and prevalent problems like sexual abuse of women in sport. It has also led to some unfortunate incidents like schoolkids in Florida and several other states being subjected to genital inspections.

It's not a new issue, either. Renee Richards, a trans woman, was competing in tennis back in the 1970s (she never actually won anything). Veronica Ivy became track cycling champion in 2018, although only for an advanced age bracket. Laurel Hubbard competed in Olympic weightlifting in 2020, but, despite all the media attention, she didn't win anything either.

There is also some confusion about cisgender athletes being accused of being transgendered. This is often due to high testosterone levels, but is sometimes just based on their rather masculine appearance. Perhaps the most famous is Caster Semenya, the successful South African middle distance runner who has won several World Championships and a gold medal in the 2016 Olympics. She is not transgender, though, she just has very high natural levels of testosterone, as some women do. In 2019, World Athletics required her to take medications to suppress her natural testosterone in order to compete (she refused, and sued World Athletics for discrimination). 

There are others: Imane Khelif, a cisgender female boxer from Algeria, who was accused of being transgender and hounded out of the sport; Dutee Chand, an Indian athlete who was excluded from selection for her butch appearance, despite not being trans; and at least five other African runners who were all withdrawn from their events for their high natural testosterone levels and/or their masculine appearance.

So, what does the evidence from scientific studies show us? 

A 2021 study in the journal Sports Medicine concluded that there is no scientific evidence to support policymakers' attempts to ban transgender women in sports. A 2024 study, partly funded by the IOC and published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, found that trans women have little physical advantage, and may actually have several disadvantages, when competing with cisgender women:

• Trans women performed worse than cis women in tests measuring lower body strength.
• Trans women performed worse than cis women in tests measuring lung function.
• Trans women had a higher body fat mass and a weaker hand grip strength than cis men.
• Trans women's bone density (linked to muscle strength) was about the same as that of cis women, not better.
• Trans women's hemoglobin profile (also a factor in athletic performance) was also about the same as that of cis women, not better.

All this to say that the issue of trans women in sports is probably much more about politics than it is about sports.

FIFA boss pleases Trump with his very own peace prize

The FIFA World Cup draw in Washington was the rather bizarre occasion for the presentation of the brand-new FIFA Peace Prize. 

The what, you say? FIFA is in the business of awarding prizes for world peace? I thought they were all about football? Good questions all.

It turns out that Gianni Infantino, the Swiss-Italian current boss of FIFA, is best buddies with Donald Trump, although nobody really knows why. From Trump's inauguration to the recent Club World Cup final to the signing of the supposed "peace deal" between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Infantino keeps popping up, Waldo-like, in Trump's environs, sometimes in the most unlikely circumstances.

Infantino's "style" was all over the the glitzy World Cup draw event. Trump's favourite entertainers, The Village People and Andrea Bocelli, were there too, as were a bunch of other actors, models and assorted hangers-on. There was much mutual back-slapping between Trump and Infantino, and some embarrassing one-sided abasement. Infantino even promised Trump "the support of the entire football community", which seemed a bit rich.

Even given all this, it was nevertheless a very strange moment when Infantino hijacked the lottery draw event, full of soccer personalities and sports talk, to present Trump with a cheap imitation peace prize, à propos of nothing at all. Given that it is very unlikely that Trump will ever earn the Nobel Prize, given his predilection for war, Infantino presumably felt sorry for him and thought he should have his very own peace prize. And it was just that: a prize created expressly for Trump and no-one else. No-one else on the 37-member FIFA Council seemed to know anything about it.

The President, though, was clearly deeply touched by all this nonsense. And, in one fell swoop, Infantino firmly positioned himself as Trump's bestie, even rivalling fallen Canadian Great One, Wayne Gretzky. It is hard to make this stuff up, isn't it?

Little Curaçao qualifies for the 2026 World Cup

The tiny country of Curaçao has become the smallest country to ever qualify for the World Cup.

With a total population of about 156,000 souls, the Caribbean island's improbable qualification for the 2026 World Cup is quite a feat, beating out the previous smallest country, Iceland, which has about 350,000 inhabitants. When you consider that about half the population is female, and an estimated 17% are under the age of 15 and 16% over 65, that leaves an adult male pool of roughly 50,000 by my estimate.

There are mitigating factors, though. Curaçao is technically an autonomous territory of the Netherlands, and not really a country in its own right. Many of its players were actually born and raised in the Netherlands, a world-class soccer nation, but choose to play for Curaçao. (They were granted permission from FIFA under its nationality rules, so there is nothing underhand going on here.)

And, credit where credit is due, Curaçao finished top of its qualifying group, above Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Bermuda. They did have a substantial measure of good luck, with Jamaica hitting the post three times and having a penalty waved off during the two team's last qualifying match. But luck is part of the game too.

I'll be cheering for Canada in the World Cup next year. But there's still a piece of my heart rooting for Curaçao (and Cape Verde, which also qualified, and which boasts a population of about 491,000 souls).

Blue Jays fans get creative over tickets

In case you didn't hear, the Toronto Blue Jays are in the Major League Baseball's World Series for the first time since 1993, first game tonight at the Rogers Centre against the Los Angeles Dodgers. It's big deal here - and even throughout the rest of Canada - and thousands of closet Jays fans (including me) have suddenly come out.

Thing is, it's such a big deal that ticket prices for home games have gone through the (retractible) roof. Initial ticket offerings sold out within hours. There have been the usual stories of touts and scammers buying up the much sought-after tickets online and immediately re-selling them at three or four times the price. There have been stories of real fans trying to buy tickets and being booted out at the payment stage under suspicion of being an automated bot (because, yes, that's a thing too, these days).

Resale tickets are going for up to $10,000, even $15,000 a piece. One lower bowl seat was being offered at $32,609. The very cheapest seats are currently selling for about $1,300 on StubHub. Toronto Mayor - oops, sorry, Ontario premier Doug Ford - has been musing about bringing in laws to limit the resale price of tickets by scalpers and gougers for events like these, but that won't help people this week, and once the event is over Ford will probably conveniently forget about all his righteous outrage (remember, he very scrapped a very similar law proposed by the Liberals when he first took office in 2019).

But some people are getting creative about getting hold of the golden tickets.

Flights to LA from Toronto are currently around $400, and you can probably find accommodation there for less than the $280 average hotel price. Given that the cheapest seats to the LA games are much cheaper (around $860), Dodgers fans being much more used to World Series appearances, you could see a game in California for around the same price you can in Toronto, which is kind of ridiculous. Of course, you also run the risk of being finger-printed, arrested, deported, and God knows that else...

Rooms in the Toronto Marriott City Centre Hotel with rooms overlooking the field of play are expensive, at around $4,000 a night (and up), but they can accommodate up to 5 people, so individuals could only pay $800 (and up) each. I doubt those are still available though.

Some people have started up GoFundMe campaigns to accumulate the cash needed for a ticket from generous souls who may or may not know them, one or two dollars at a time, and some of those have well surpassed their goals.

Then, there is something called "district drops", good tickets offered at preferential prices to those subscribing to a Blue Jays promotional text subscription scheme.

And finally, you could just trust to luck and hope for last minute price drops - and I mean VERY last minute - through Ticketmaster, as they look to unload unsold tickets. But given everything else that is going on, and the general baseball hysteria in the city, I really wouldn't rely on that.

I only hope all these people are not disappointed.

Toronto Blue Jays' improbable last-to-first run

As perpetual also-rans the Toronto Blue Jays clawed their way back into Major League Baseball's World Series after another comeback win last night against the Seattle Mariners, many people are probably wondering,"How the hell did that happen?"

Toronto has pulled off an improbable last-to-first stunt. After a horrible 2024 season, the Jays won the American League East Division this year, ahead of a strong and highly-fancied Yankees team. They also went on to beat the Yankees reasonably easily in the first round of the post-season, before dismissing Seattle in a roller-coaster seven game series in the AL Championship Series.

What's interesting, though, is that they have done it with pretty much the same team as had such a dismal season just a year ago. Same manager too.

This year's stars, like Vladimir Guerrero Jr., George Springer, Alejandro Kirk, Bo Bichette and Addison Barger, all played for the Jays in 2024. They just didn't play that well (Guerrero Jr. excepted). This offensive nucleus just seems to have turned it around this year. 

After a bad season, the Blue Jays had a pretty active time trading at the Trade Deadline and in the off-season. But it wasn't those acquisitions that has made the difference this year; it was the existing roster players. In fact, most of their big trade plays (Shohei Ohtani, Juan Soto, Roki Sasaki) came to nothing, and one big one they did make, Anthony Santander, proved disappointing, even before his injury.

Yes, they acquired some quality on the mound, with Max Scherzer and Jeff Hoffman, but it has mainly been Toronto's hot batting that has got them where they are today (and, in the post-season, they have even done it without Bo Bichette, who is still off injured).

So, the old guard are getting it done. Don't ask how, just go with it. They now face the defending championship - and huge favourites - LA Dodgers next. Oh, and Shohei Ohtani... But it still feels pretty nice being in the World Series again after all those years (I'm still wearing the 1993-4 sweatshirt from last time).

Another Summer of Summer

We're having ourselves another Summer of Summer.

Canadian teen swimming phenom Summer McIntosh is bringing in the hardware again at the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore. On winning her third gold medal of the meet, the 200-metre butterfly, she didn't even look that pleased. In fact, she could clearly be seen mouthing "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" (She definitely wasn't saying "Fiddlesticks! Fiddlesticks! Fiddlesticks!")  The reason? She missed out on breaking another world record by 0.18 of a second, a record set back in 2009 by China's Liu Zige, at a time when the now-banned "supersuits" had just come out, but before they were banned.

That's how good she is: she expects to beat world records, even world records set under dubious circumstances. She's currently on track for five individual gold medals, a feat only ever achieved by the great Michael Phelps.

The social and psychological cost of staying drug-free in sports

Penny Oleksiak is one of Canada's most successful swimmers and Olympians (although that was before Summer Mackintosh became the new It Girl). As it happens she lives just up the road from me, here in the east end of Toronto. She is still on the Canadian national swim team, but, in the run-up to the next Olympics (July 2028 in Los Angeles, providing California is still part of the USA - and the USA is still part of the world - by then), she has blotted her copybook big time.

She's not a cheater and she's not a maverick, but she is nevertheless deemed to have violated the rules of the International Testing Agency, and has had to declare a voluntary provisional suspension of her ambitions while the matter is investigated, In the process, her case has opened up to the public some of the lesser known rules around doping that top athletes and sports people have to adhere to in order to be taken seriously at the top levels. 

See, Ms. Oleksiak is in violation of the "whereabouts" rules. It turns out that in order to get a clean bill of health from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) for World Championships, Olympics, and other major international competitions, competitors need to log in using the ADAMS (Anti-Doping Administration and Management System) online system. 

Athletes are required to report an accurate and up to date record of their whereabouts at all times.  Every day. This is so that they can be drug tested at any time with no notice. "Late, inaccurate or incomplete whereabouts" constitutes a Filing Failure, and three such failures in any one year results in a WADA failure, which can mean an athlete is banned from competitions even if they have never ever taken a banned substance.

This is the position Ms. Oleksiak now finds herself in. She is branded as just as bad as the worst of the Russian serial offenders, even though she swears she has never ever taken any banned substance, but is merely caught up in this administrative snafu.

It makes you realize just how much privacy and autonomy top athletes have to sacrifice in order to pursue their sporting dreams. Penny hasn't commented publicly, other than a short, now-deleted Instagram post. But, as other athletes note, they go in to this system eyes open, and it is essentially just a cost of doing business at these rarefied heights. But what an imposition!