T O CALL THE GLOBAL men’s soccer championship a big undertaking barely describes the massive logistical exercise that will bring a record 48 national teams and their entourages to Vancouver and Toronto, along with some 350,000 visitors and droves of media and dignitaries over the 39-day tournament. Although Canada’s host cities boast solid bench strength in handling major sports events—like Vancouver’s 2010 Winter Olympics and Toronto’s 2025 MLB World Series—hosting the global soccer showdown promises to build valuable new expertise in safety and security. GLOBAL COORDINATION In an October 2025 presentation to the Event Safety Alliance Conference, Peter Code, the tournament’s executive director of Safety & Security Canada, described international planning, underway since early 2024. “This is the most comprehensive method of planning a tournament such as this, one amongst three different nations, all doing things a little bit differently, but absolutely consistent,” he said. Global coordination will introduce some measures not yet familiar in many sports venues across Canada, like secure turnstiles at stadium entrances. Canada’s central coordinating bodies are the event’s Toronto and Vancouver Secretariats. Each has an integrated safety and security unit coordinating a dizzyingly complex network of stakeholders such as federal, provincial and municipal governments; police and fire services; facilities managers; public health boards and hospitals; transportation and transit authorities; public utilities, and their counterparts in other host cities. ADRENALIN REPORTS safe- guard ng the beautiful game MANAGING RISK Protocols focus on risk assessment, emergency preparedness and communication strategies. In December, crisis management firm The Ackerman Group published a security assessment that finds threats of targeted attacks in Canada around the tournament to be low. However, it flags petty or violent crime, political protests and, potentially, fan behaviour. Brazil-based risk specialist Luiz Guilherme Carvalho also published an extensive risk-management analysis last October. With the surge of AI capabilities, he believes that both good and bad actors will have unprecedented access to digital tools for protecting or infiltrating communications and commercial functions. He estimates Canada’s direct security expenditures to be “$180 million distributed between federal agencies led by the RCMP and provincial/municipal authorities.” The Vancouver Host Committee states “We’ve assessed potential hazards, identified capability gaps, and built those findings directly into our operational and contingency plans. This preparation ensures we can respond quickly and in a unified way to both expected and unexpected situations.” SHARING INTELLIGENCE At the Event Safety Alliance Conference, Code discussed some security measures. At the global level, each host city will receive dossiers on national teams and their fans, highlighting everything from on-field rivalries to potential geopolitical disagreements. Cities are sharing intelligence, and police officers from some competing countries will attend in a civilian capacity to monitor and advise on their nation’s supporters. They will be especially useful in helping host cities predict pop-up fan marches, which can mobilize thousands of excited supporters unexpectedly in public places. Around the stadiums, “behaviour detection officers” will circulate unobtrusively to keep an eye on the mood of the crowds. Stadium security will be trained in the European model of “stewards.” “When you go to a European football match, you will very rarely see police officers,” Code told conference delegates. “What you will see is stewards—professionals at what they do, and they are respected, listened to and incredibly effective. I think that will have a huge legacy impact in relation to safety and security.” In addition, specially trained human rights and anti-discrimination units will watch for flags, banners, songs or chants that go beyond friendly competition into the territory of inappropriate discrimination. SAFE STREETS “Last mile” is a key concept in managing crowd movement; it means concentrating on routes between major transit hubs and venues. Although Canada’s host cities boast solid bench strength in handling major sports events, hosting the global soccer showdown promises to build valuable new expertise in safety and security. Around the stadiums, “behaviour detection officers” will circulate unobtrusively to keep an eye on the mood of the crowds. Toronto and Vancouver go all out for safety and security BY SARAH B. HOOD 24 ADRENALIN | SPRING 2026 ADRENALINMAG.CA
