The City of Hamilton and the organization which runs the Vanier Cup have reached an agreement for Hamilton to play host to the next two Canadian national university football championships.

"We have a deal in principle," Rom D'Angelo, the city's director of facilities management and capital programs, told The Spectator Friday morning. "We're just drafting a memorandum of agreement and we will be sending out a copy to the CIS next week."

Canadian Interuniversity Sport owns and runs the Vanier Cup and has been in discussions for a few weeks with the city, Tim Hortons Field management, Tourism Hamilton, McMaster University and several tiers of football organizations in the area, including the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, to bring the 2016 and 2017 Cups to Tim Hortons Field.

"We met (Thursday) and went through all the contentious issues and now everything has to be 'papered' properly," said Graham Brown, chief executive officer of the CIS.

"We negotiated and hammered away at issues, it was a positive meeting. Ultimately I have to take it to the CIS board and once all the paperwork comes from the city I will recommend the board approve it. And once the paperwork is in place I cannot see why the board would not approve it."

As recently as two weeks ago, when two other cities had also expressed interest in playing host to the Vanier Cup, the CIS was said to be seeking $200,000 in guarantees from the host city. But D'Angelo stressed on Friday morning that there is no financial guarantee from the city in the agreement in principle.

"The city will not be putting up any financial guarantee," D'Angelo said. "Our operating costs will be 'made whole' by the CIS."

D'Angelo added that the city will make money from ticket sales and concessions.

The CIS, which used to contract the Vanier Cup out to a third-party rights holder, is now back to running the national championships itself. It wants a city to host the Vanier Cup in back-to-back years because with its structure of rotating semifinals (Ontario's champion plays the west winner in one year, and the Quebec in another, for instance), there is a better chance in those two years for one of the teams in the game to come from its local university football league. That, in turn, increases the likelihood of bigger crowds.

Rob Gatto, stadium manager at Tim Hortons Field said "it's a great honour to host the Vanier Cup for the next two years. It's a large part of what the stadium is for: to host Vanier Cups and other big events and, down the road, the Grey Cup."

Brown said that despite the busy holiday season, with many stakeholders either away or involved with other activities, the CIS has made finalizing the Vanier Cup agreement a top priority and the board would likely vote on the memorandum of agreement once it arrives from the city.

He said there are also separate contracts to be signed with the likes of Tourism Hamilton, Football Ontario and Ontario University Athletics, which oversees interuniversity football in the province.

"Tim Hortons Field is the perfect spot for the Vanier Cup," Brown said, "I can't believe the attention that was put into the press accommodation, the hosting facilities, the dressing rooms.

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"And the city staff has been excellent to deal with."

Both the city and CIS said they hope to have a news conference early in the new year to release further details.