I'm in favour of getting these new facilities in the city, and partial funding of them through public dollars, as I feel there is benefit.
But, there is nothing "embarrassing" about missing out on events. Not every city needs to be set up for all sports, or concerts, or arts events that come around. A good city needs to be set up to get their fair share, but we don't need to be capable of facilitating everything that comes along.
Missing out on Women's World Cup or U-23 is far from embarrassing. So we aren't set up for soccer, that's all that means. It's one sport / event out of many. If we aren't capable of hosting anything, that would be embarrassing. And I'm not saying the city can't work towards getting more set up for soccer events if it makes sense, but missing out on events that a huge chunk of the population couldn't give a rats ass about isn't embarassing, we need to keep perspective.
Moncton isn't capable of hosting half the events Calgary is, the fact they are more prepared for certain soccer events is really meaningless in the big picture.
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