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Melissa Tan ,

June 9, 2014 Email

Melissa Tan

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With just over two months until the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup 2014 begins, the finishing touches are coming along for host cities Edmonton, Toronto, Montréal and Moncton. In Toronto, ‎Venue General Manager Lisette Johnson Stapley is overseeing preparations in the city and is confident that the tournament will impress.



Ticket sales are reportedly going well, which Johnson Stapley attributes to Toronto's passionate fans who have shown unwavering support for men's and women's international soccer over the years. The FIFA U-20 Men’s World Cup 2007 set a number of attendance records and matches at the National Soccer Stadium (aka BMO Field) were sold out all through the tournament, including 19,526 at the final.



In June of last year, 22,453 packed the stands for CanWNT vs. USWNT – "a record for a soccer game at BMO Field" – for their first match against each other since the infamous 2012 London Olympic semi-final.



The inaugural FIFA U-19 (now U-20) Women's World Cup Canada 2002 set the bar high for attendance numbers. At Edmonton's Commonwealth Stadium, which has almost three-times the capacity of BMO Field, 25,000 came out for Canada's opening match against Denmark; 15,714 vs. Japan; 15,803 vs. Nigeria; 23,595 and 37,194 for England and Brazil in the quarter- and semi-finals, respectively, and 47,784 for the championship against the United States.



Johnson Stapley, whose resume includes leadership roles with the Canadian Women's Hockey League, Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium and Own the Podium, is aiming high. "That's our targeted goal for every game: to be sold out," she told RedNationOnline last week.



It could be possible. After all, the National Soccer Stadium is hosting Canada's first two group stage matches (Ghana on August 5th and Finland on August 8th) and a quarter-final match, among others. Click here for the full schedule.



It's also an opportunity for fans to preview the future stars of the CanWNT. "The U-19s is where the likes of Kara Lang and Christine Sinclair made their debuts," said Johnson Stapley.



"We've got unbelievable athletes who have competed on the senior national team [editor's note: such as Ashley Lawrence, Nichelle Prince, Rebecca Quinn and Sura Yekka] and will most likely be on the U-20 team. There are locals from Mississauga, London and the Durham region. This is a really key showcase for the next generation of soccer players.”



The marketing team in Toronto has been hard at work engaging with a broad spectrum of potential attendees. "We're working a lot with the local soccer clubs, cultural communities because of the different countries that are coming in and people who have been to events before," said Johnson Stapley.



"The target market is women, naturally. We're also reaching out through local businesses. There are a few different partners near the National Soccer Stadium, such as MLSE and the CNE. We're working with the City of Toronto and Toronto Tourism. We've been really getting a lot of support from those partners and they've been sending on information to their employees."



Pre-tournament events, like the 100-Day Countdown that took place simultaneously in host cities, roused much interest in the general public. As Johnson Stapley described the festivities in Toronto, "We were down at the Rogers Centre with the promo street team and some freestylers, which really engaged the kids and the fans. And, we were up at Yonge-Dundas Square and the Adidas Store with the U-20 Women's World Cup Trophy. A lot of fans came in and took their photos. It was great." City Hall was also lit green in support of the tournament.



Advertisements are being broadcast on television nationally and on YouTube. Recently released is a digital ad at Toronto's Yonge-Dundas Square, a vibrant outdoor public space in the downtown core. Often likened to New York's Times Square, Yonge-Dundas Square has an estimated weekly pedestrian traffic that peaks at 150,000. Ads will also appear at Union Station, "Canada's busiest transportation hub" used by over 250,000 passengers daily, in the coming weeks.



Central to Toronto's hosting duties is the National Soccer Stadium. Having opened in 2007 and completed seating expansion in the past few years, the 21,566 capacity stadium is in top form "requiring very little renovations, if any at all," Johnson Stapley reassured.



Although Edmonton (Commonwealth Stadium), Montréal (Olympic Stadium) and Moncton (Moncton Stadium) feature turf fields, youth tournaments are allowed mixed surfaces as long as the turf meets FIFA standards. As such, the grass at National Soccer Stadium will remain.



In maintaining consistency between training and competition surfaces, grass training sites near the city have been secured. "We've got a couple different training sites: one in Brampton (home of Brampton United) and one in Vaughan (home of Woodbridge Soccer Club)," revealed Johnson Stapley. "Naturally, certain FIFA requirements are quite strict. We've identified training sites which have everything that we need."



Rounding out the team helping to deliver the U-20 WWC 2014 and WWC 2015 are volunteers. Over 1,700 applications were received within the first week of launching the Volunteer Programme last October with as many as 4,000 by April. "We had unbelievable registration rates for volunteers," Johnson Stapley exclaimed. "We're looking at anywhere between 200 and 300 probably in Toronto alone. They're the key behind the success of tournaments."



For more information on the U-20 WWC 2014, visit http://fwwc2015.ca/, subscribe to the Canadian Soccer Association newsletter, follow @FIFAWWC on Twitter and use hashtags #Canada2014, #U20WWC and #Toronto2014. Tickets can be purchased through the FIFA website where individual match tickets start at just $10.



The U-20 WWC 2014 runs from August 5-24.