Canada's 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup prelim games
| Date | Opponent | Time | Location | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| June 6 | China | 6p | Edmonton | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| June 11 | New Zealand | 9p | Edmonton | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| June 15 | Netherlands | 7:30p | Montréal | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| All games on CTV and Fox Sports 1. All times Eastern Daylight Time. |
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Canada is left, centre, and right stage for the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup soccer tournament starting tomorrow. The matches will be spread across 6 Canadian cities: Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Montréal, and Moncton, NB.
CFL stadiums will be in use in 4 of the 6 cities, though Olympic Stadium in Montréal and Moncton Stadium in Moncton have hosted CFL games.
The schedule lists Winnipeg Stadium (Winnipeg) and Lansdowne Stadium (Ottawa). The names have been changed because FIFA has the power to remove a corporate name from a stadium while the facility is being used for the FIFA event.
The 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup soccer tournament will affect CFL preseason and regular season action: we'll have more of that development on Monday.
All of the facilities but Winnipeg will host a Round of 16 game: Ottawa, Edmonton, and Vancouver will host 2 games in that round with Montréal and Moncton hosting a game each.
Montréal, Ottawa, Edmonton, and Vancouver each host a quarterfinals match. Semifinals are in Montréal and Edmonton. Alberta's capital will host the 3rd-place game while Vancouver hosts the title game on July 5 at BC Place Stadium.
This is Canada's first FIFA tournament since the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup.
Television rights
CTV and TSN will carry the coverage in English in Canada while RDS will handle the French language telecasts. In the United States, the games will air on Fox over the air, Fox Sports 1, and Fox Sports 2 in English and some games in Telemundo in Spanish.
According to Fox, the 2015 event is the first time in 12 years any FIFA Women's World Cup matches will air on broadcast TV, and also the only World Cup outside of the U.S. to get that honor. Fox will show 16 games over the air; a first for a U.S. over-the-air outlet.
The breakdown on the U.S. side: 16 on Fox, 29 on Fox Sports 1, and 7 Fox Sports 2 telecasts.
U.S. viewers can also use FOX Sports Go to stream telecasts and view alternate angles to the coverage. Canadian viewers can stream via TSN GO.
FIFA scandal
When the men's FIFA World Cup sites were announced for Russia and Qatar, there was grumbling as to whether those decisions were financially based (bribes?). The selection of Canada for the 2015 Women's World Cup was not likely tied to any potential bribes, especially with having a country that is using artificial turf (see below).
The re-election and subsequent resignation of FIFA President Sepp Blatter gathered enough headlines this week when the women's teams deserved to be in the spotlight. If we could convince the TV outlets to leave "FIFA" out of "FIFA Women's World Cup," then the focus can be on soccer and not scandal.
Turf troubles
You might recall that a number of women were upset about the idea of playing the World Cup on artificial turf since the men play on grass. They filed a lawsuit challenging the decision to play on artificial turf and that the gender inequality violates the Canadian Human Rights Act. Finding grass in a major stadium in Canada is rather difficult. Commonwealth Stadium was the last regular grass field in the CFL. Moncton Stadium has grass but is being fitted for artificial turf for the tournament.
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