Canada usually does not attract the focus of international football, but when it organizes its first World Cup match next year, global fans will come across a country where the sport is flourishing.
The kick-off in the inaugural World Cup match of Canada was set up on 12 June 2026 in Toronto, a city that is consistently mentioned as one of the world's most diverse, where immigration has propelled the rise of football.
Data ranking football – more often known in Canada as football – as the most popular sport among the Canadian youth and, while the country retains its love for ice hockey, families are increasingly struggling to participate in the cherished sport, often due to costs.
Majied Ali runs Toronto's Islamic Soccer League, who serves Muslim youth in the Eastern Scarborough district in Toronto, a historical immigrant landing place.
“I founded this competition in 1996 with 34 children,” said Ali, who emigrated from Trinidad to Canada in 1986.
“We started with (a fee) of just $ 20 dollars per player,” he told AFP, and noted that the current seasonal costs can be a modest $ 100 ($ 74).
Ali said that the competition now has around 1500 players, with a waiting list, growth that he connects with waves of immigration between Muslim communities.
He remembered the arrival of refugees from Somalia and Kosovo in the nineties, followed by those who fled conflicts in Afghanistan and Syria.
“Over the years we have seen an explosion of diversity,” said Ali.
Football rises, hockey falls
A report from 2024 by the Jumpstart Foundation that follows the participation of youth sport in Canada turned out: “Soccer is consistently played the most popular sport.”
The finding applied to all demographic groups, with the exception of young people with disabilities.
In general, 62 percent of Canadian youth reported to play football more than once in the past three years, with second swimming at 44 percent.
Although football has built up a broad popularity, the Jumpstart report makes it clear that there is a racial and ethnic component for participation in sport.
In a breakdown of the preference by racing and ethnicity, Jumpstart found 76 percent of Arab youth in Canada football as their top choice, followed by South Asians (69 percent), with white people on the list on the list at 58 percent.
The rise of football has also merged with a decrease in the participation of youth hockey.
“Football is cheaper than hockey with less equipment,” said Dave Cooper, a associate professor (emeritus) of physical education at the University of Toronto.
The JumpStart report mentioned Hockey Fifth of the participation rate with data that indicate that the speed of young Canadians who play Hockey has fallen 33 percent in the last 15 years.
'Where the energy is'
Erik Wexler runs the Youth Sports Program in Woodgreen, an organization for social services in Toronto.
The program is suitable for families with a low income, especially new immigrants, and has focused on football and basketball because, he said, that is “what people ask for”.
“We are not only randomly selecting a sport,” he said. “We know where the energy is.”
Wexler said that AFP Football has proved to be an ideal path to offer immigrants a sense of community in their new home.
He regularly meets parents who work and live several jobs in apartments full of more than one family people who may not have the capacity to organize out-of-school sports for their children.
They jump on the opportunity to place their children in a well -known sport, said Wexler.
“I have never seen appreciative people in my life again.”
Although it is away for a year, Wexler said that the youth he encounters know that the World Cup is coming and the tournament that it is together with the United States and Mexico offers an opportunity to bring the momentum of football in Canada “to the next level.”
The Canadian interest in the World Cup has risen in recent years, with people who support teams for which they have a family connection -or in 2022, Canada directly, after the national side and his star player Alphonso Davies qualified for the Qatar tournament after a 36 -year -old world cup.
But next summer marks an unprecedented moment for Canada, Cooper said.
“We have never organized anything like that.”
Apart from in Toronto, World Cup matches are also played in Vancouver.