OTTAWA \u2014 Canada Soccer’s plan to build a national training centre has received a major funding boost. <\/p>\n
The federal government announced Friday it will contribute $9.8 million from the new Build Communities Strong Fund for the planning, design and pre-construction of the proposed facility. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe national training centre will be a multi-use, nationally significant sport and community infrastructure project, and will establish a permanent home for soccer in Canada,” housing and infrastructure minister Gregor Robertson said at the announcement in Vancouver. <\/p>\n
“The national training centre is envisioned as an integrated sport and community campus. Plans feature outdoor fields, a full-sized indoor pitch for year-round use, and high-performance training and sports science facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
The funding will come from the Build Communities Strong Fund, a $51-billion infrastructure tranche included in the Liberals’ 2025 budget. <\/p>\n
Money for the training centre is part of $250 million Ottawa has earmarked for sports infrastructure across the country, said Adam van Koeverden, the country’s secretary of state for sport. <\/p>\n
The federal government also announced in its spring economic update this week that it’s setting aside $660 million over the next five years for national sport organizations that have faced mounting deficits for years.<\/p>\n
Taken together, the two pots of money represent an unprecedented dedication to Canadian sport, van Koeverden said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt is truly a generational investment and a landmark opportunity,” he said. “It\u2019s more than just a milestone \u2014 this is a turning point for sport in Canada.\u201d <\/p>\n
Canada Soccer put out a call in December, asking municipalities, provincial and territorial soccer associations, post-secondary institutions and others to come forward if they were interested in “hosting or partnering” on a future high-performance training centre. <\/p>\n
The national sports organization received 18 submissions from across the country, said chief executive officer Kevin Blue, and is now readying to launch a formal request for proposal process in the coming weeks. <\/p>\n
Building the new facility will give the national teams a permanent home, giving players, coaches and technical staff a place to train, prepare and compete, said Canada Soccer president Peter Augruso. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor years, Canada has been one of the few major soccer nations in the world without a dedicated national training centre,” he said. “At a time where the game is growing rapidly across every corner of this country, this gap has become impossible to ignore.”<\/p>\n
France opened its training centre in 1988, and has academies across the country, while England has St. George’s Park in Staffordshire. <\/p>\n
The Arthur M. Blank U.S. Soccer National Training Center, scheduled to open later this month in the spring in Fayetteville, Ga., includes more than a dozen soccer fields. <\/p>\n
The funding announcement comes one day after Vancouver hosted the 76th FIFA Congress on Wednesday, and as the city prepares to host seven games during this summer’s FIFA World Cup. <\/p>\n
Toronto is also among the 16 cities across Canada, the United States and Mexico that will host the expanded 48-team tournament between June 11 and July 19. <\/p>\n
Vancouver will stage five group-stage games, a round-of-32 matchup and a round-of-16 game. Toronto will host six matches, including Canada’s first game of the tournament against Bosnia-Herzegovina on June 13. <\/p>\n
Canada’s training centre will be an important legacy of the World Cup, Augruso said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a lasting investment in Canadian Soccer. It\u2019s a lasting investment in Canadian communities,” he said. <\/p>\n
Ottawa plans to invest in other sports infrastructure across Canada, too. <\/p>\n
Traditionally, the country’s biggest and best facilities were built to host major events such as the Olympics or Pan American Games, said van Koeverden, an Olympic gold medallist.<\/p>\n
The former sprint kayaker noted that he trained at the Montreal Olympic Basin, which was built for the 1976 Games. His riding in Milton, Ont., is home to a velodrome built for the PanAm Games in 2015.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re stepping up to build Canadian sport infrastructure for Canadians. And that\u2019s a real change, I have to say,” he said.<\/p>\n
“This initiative is building sport infrastructure for Canadian national teams in the absence of a large multi-sport event. Which also allows us to build it from coast to coast to coast.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 1, 2026.<\/p>\n
Gemma Karstens-Smith, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OTTAWA \u2014 Canada Soccer’s plan to build a national training centre has received a major funding boost. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[49,48,20739],"class_list":["post-642875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-ottawa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}