Vancouver moves training facility for men's national soccer team to UBC for 2026 World Cup

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