Vancouver moves training facility for men's national soccer team to UBC for 2026 World Cup
Facility moved from Memorial South Park after outcry over loss of neighbourhood park for nearly 2 years
The City of Vancouver announced Monday that it will move the Canadian men's national soccer team's training facility for the 2026 FIFA World Cup from a neighbourhood park, where it had met with stiff opposition from local residents, to the University of B.C.
The city says it will no longer build the training facility at Memorial South Park and instead use the existing National Soccer Development Centre.
There was much resident outcry over the conversion of Memorial South Park on Ross Street into a soccer practice facility — with the park's walking track and some green space inaccessible until the fall of 2026.
But the city's park board nonetheless approved the construction of the practice facility, which would have necessitated building locker rooms and floodlights, as park board staff said the city would face significant legal liability if it didn't comply.
At the time, park board commissioners pushed for the National Soccer Development Centre, already in use by the Vancouver Whitecaps and located at UBC's Point Grey campus, to be the facility instead — and now, the city says it has signed a letter of intent to do just that.
"This letter of intent marks an important step toward finalizing binding arrangements to make the state-of-the-art facility a hub to support the FIFA World Cup 26 event," the city said Monday in a statement.
"Construction of the upgrades that were planned for Memorial South Park will no longer proceed, and the park will remain fully accessible to the community in its current condition leading up to and during the FIFA World Cup 26 event."
B.C. Place Stadium is set to host seven games as part of the continent-wide tournament in the summer of 2026.
The training base move marks an about-face for the city in the face of withering criticism after park board staff said the training sites at Memorial South and another at Killarney Park were chosen following a comprehensive analysis.
Park user Beth Ringdahl, from the Friends of Memorial South group, said thousands of South Vancouver residents will be pleased with the news.
"It would have been closed for close to two years ... and we weren't sure if the alterations that would permanently alter that heart of our park ... if our park would ever be the same after it was used for this purpose," she told CBC News.
Memorial South reluctantly chosen
When park board commissioners approved the training facility at Memorial South Park, they said they did so reluctantly — and some abstained from the vote outright.
"I feel that the the obligations that we have in front of us are unfortunate," said Commissioner Brennan Bastyovanszky at the Dec. 9 meeting when the decision was made. "I feel like my hand is being forced."
Commissioner Tom Digby was one of the commissioners who pressed city staff at the meeting for alternatives, pointing to the UBC training facility.
"We're putting together what I'm concerned is going to be seen as a joke facility," he told the meeting. "It's a little neighbourhood park in a residential area. Every other city is using major facilities which have already been recognized as top quality fields."
Digby said at the time that the UBC facility "solves almost all the concerns that we've heard tonight."
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With files from Pinki Wong