The city of Toronto is defending reselling its World Cup tickets for profit, with the mayor’s office saying the move helps “avoid” spending property taxes on a tournament that has gone over its initial budget and begins Friday.  

Shirven Rezvany, a spokesperson for Mayor Olivia Chow’s office, confirmed Monday that the city was selling its share of World Cup tickets, saying that it was “one of several avenues pursued by the City to avoid spending property tax dollars.”

“All host cities were provided this opportunity by FIFA in order to offset costs. Our understanding is that many, if not all, of them did [that],” he said in a written statement.   

FIFA controls tickets to the games and gives host cities the opportunity to buy up a portion of ticket packages before they are made available to private ticket sellers.   

In an emailed update Tuesday, Stephen Conforti, Toronto’s chief financial officer, said the city has sold more than 450 of its approximately 3,500 World Cup packages, which will help “ensure a return on the City of Toronto’s investment.”

The city decided to buy up the packages last year, with Toronto’s FIFA World Cup subcommittee recommending that the city buy nearly $11 million worth of match tickets, citing it as a “key revenue generation strategy,” according to a decision letter from the committee last March. The packages include tickets to the games, access to hospitality suites and other amenities at Toronto Stadium.

That decision drew ire from some councillors, who criticized the move as scalping. Others saw it as a big revenue opportunity. 

WATCH | Why Toronto is buying up FIFA tickets:

Toronto wants to spend almost $11M on luxury box seats for the FIFA World Cup

A seat at the FIFA World Cup is one of the most coveted tickets in sports. As CBC’s Lane Harrison reports, Toronto wants to capitalize on that popularity by spending $10.7 million on ticket packages.

City councillor and mayoral candidate Brad Bradford blasted Chow for the move in a video posted to X, formerly Twitter.

He claimed that Chow was “scalping” tickets and that Toronto was the only city reselling its FIFA packages for profit. 

The City of Vancouver — the other Canadian city hosting World Cup matches — confirmed in an email to CBC News that it was also selling its portion of purchased tickets at a profit.

“The great majority of the tickets held by the City are being sold via the FWC26 Sponsorship Program, in order to raise net revenues to offset the cost of event hosting,” Vancouver’s World Cup host committee said in an emailed statement. 

The committee said it purchased approximately 7,400 World Cup tickets but did not disclose how many it sold.  

When asked about Bradford’s claim that Toronto is the only city to resell its tickets — which runs contrary to what the City of Vancouver told CBC News — Isha Chaudhuri, his spokesperson, said the practice is “wrong anywhere.” 

A 2025 report from Toronto’s auditor general noted that Toronto initially projected its FIFA costs to be $30-45 million. In 2022, that amount ballooned to over $280 million. The projected cost is now $380 million, according to the report.