As geopolitical tensions escalate, Vancouver 2026 World Cup matches will have an unprecedented number of police officers to monitor safety
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When the World Cup comes to Vancouver in June and July, there will be thousands of fans sporting soccer jerseys and their national pride. There will also be an unprecedented number of people wearing badges.
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“On a match day, there will be the largest deployment of police resources for a single event that has ever occurred in Vancouver,” Dave Jones, head of security for the local FIFA games, said in a recent interview with Postmedia.
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That means there will be more officers than were assigned to any single Vancouver event during the 2010 Winter Olympics, such as the gold-medal hockey game. Or for one of Taylor Swift’s 2024 Eras Tour concerts, which were an international sensation.
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Jones, a four-decade law-enforcement veteran who was chief of both the New Westminster Police Department and Transit Police, would not reveal the exact number of officers assigned to the seven games in Vancouver. He said specific deployments are still being finalized.
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The contingent will come from Vancouver police, the lead agency for this event, as well as from the RCMP and municipal forces in Calgary and Edmonton, where some officers have trained alongside the VPD for public safety and crowd control.
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Officers will not just be stationed near B.C. Place Stadium, where the games will be played, but at the practice facilities at the University of B.C. and Killarney Park, the Fan Festival at the PNE, the airport, hotels where VIPs will stay, traffic control, and potentially with players if they want to explore the city. There will also have to be enough officers in other areas of the city for 911 calls unrelated to the World Cup.
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There are several factors behind this historic security plan, including escalating global tensions, in particular in the Middle East where Gulf countries have been badly affected by the war between Iran and the U.S. and Israel. Qatar and Egypt are both scheduled to play in Vancouver.
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“Geopolitics plays a lot into what we look at,” said Jones, who is employed by Vancouver City Hall to lead FIFA Vancouver’s integrated safety and security unit.
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Information has been gathered regarding visiting nations, and officers have spoken with officials from the teams and their fan associations who are travelling to Vancouver.
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“We educate them on the city of Vancouver and Canadian laws and customs, and what the expectations are,” he said. “The whole idea is to mitigate (risk) ahead of time. … Right now, we feel in a pretty comfortable position.”
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The overall potential risks at these games, Jones said, include petty crimes or unruly behaviour by overzealous spectators, protecting pedestrians from vehicle rammings, and avoiding cyber attacks. To stave off possible incursions by air, Transport Canada will establish no-fly zones for citizen-owned drones over parts of the city and the RCMP will operate drone-detection technology, he added.
