We are just over one year away from the world coming to Vancouver for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, but one park that will likely soon be a training field has caught the ire of a South Vancouver community.
Daily Hive Urbanized has offered extensive coverage of FIFA’s plans to transform some Vancouver parks into training facilities, including the original development plans and budget.
We’ve also shared some of the community’s concerns, and now, a scathing open letter to Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim was shared with us. The person who drafted the letter said the park’s closure will impact older community members.
“Many of them will learn about the 20-month track closure the day they arrive at the fenced-off track,” the writer states.
On Monday night, the Vancouver Park Board will hold a final vote on the training sites, one at South Memorial Park and the other at Killarney Park.
Both parks will be closed from January 2025 until the fall of 2026. Daily Hive Urbanized published a story detailing the training sites this summer, which carry a budget of $37 million.
According to a concerned community member who sent the letter to Daily Hive, the letter was in response to Sim’s comments to Daily Hive about the park in an interview about being mayor for over two whole years now. Sim actually apologized to the community over its concerns, validating the sentiments shared by some, including almost 2,000 who have signed a petition.
“The community needs the park space as there is a serious lack of parks in the southeast,” one of the signees said.
Another signee said, “As an athlete, I use the track regularly. And as a nurse, I see the numerous negative impacts if plans go ahead for the many community members of all ages who use this to exercise, to congregate and connect.”
You can read more of the community’s concerns here.
Still, Sim said he believes that the final decision is for the greater good and that those concerned community members will inherit a world-class training site once the FIFA World Cup is over.
The letter, signed by “An angry granddaughter,” primarily concerns the impact the training site would have on the older community members who visit South Memorial Park. The granddaughter states that she was born in Vancouver to immigrant Chinese parents.
“My siblings and I were raised by grandparents who spoke zero English, who took us to South Memorial Park often because it was free and it was a place where our imagination and little legs could run wild.”
The letter writer said that they feel sorry “for all the Chinese seniors who voted for you solely because they, full of ignorant hope, thought someone who looked like them would naturally look out for them.”
She also had thoughts about what the park and community need, which didn’t include a FIFA training facility.
“When I visit the parks in your neighbourhood and those of your business friends, I see beautiful features being added like picturesque bridges over running streams, wheelchair access going down to the beach, bountiful new picnic benches, and I think, this is what a community needs.”
When we spoke to Sim, he told Daily Hive that the negative aspects of this future FIFA training site outweigh the positive aspects.
It is likely now a foregone conclusion that these training sites will take over the impacted parks, but we’ll know for sure tonight after the Vancouver Park Board vote. But what will those impacted community members do? Nothing, according to the letter writer.
“They would do what my grandma would have done if she were still alive. Nothing. Suffer in silence. Perhaps it is why this community was chosen to be one of the FIFA training sites, for which I have to say: SHAME ON YOU ALL.”
Do you agree that the pros outweigh the cons for the community that’s being impacted?