HOUSTON – At first, Kevin Blue leapt out of his seat.
Canada Soccer’s general secretary and CEO was beside FIFA officials and leadership from the South African Football Association when Stephen Eustaquio scored a dramatic, stoppage-time goal to give Canada their first ever World Cup knockout round win. Instead of returning to that seat, Blue soon rushed to three nearby Canada Soccer colleagues in a wave of red-faced emotion: Chief of Soccer operations Mathieu Chamberland, sporting director Kenneth Heiner-Møller and COO and CFO Erin Crowe.
“A jumping, four-way hug,” Blue said.
After elation eventually subsided, the ever-pragmatic Blue would have realized what was coming to Canada Soccer beyond another game at the World Cup: an additional $4 million ($5.7m CAD) in prize money for qualifying for the Round of 16.
Prize money can be a lesser-known aspect of the World Cup. Canada had never made it out of the World Cup group stage and had qualified for the tournament only twice before 2026. And so, most years, Canada Soccer had missed out on that prize money. A lack of prize money from the world’s biggest tournament was not the sole reason, but one of the reasons Canada Soccer struggled financially and for mainstream relevance in Canada.
Canada’s run to the Round of 16 has changed things.
Perhaps for some of the more established and consistently successful soccer federations, FIFA-awarded prize money might not dramatically alter their financial outlook. But for countries like Canada and organizations like Canada Soccer, the team’s World Cup run could be the launching pad for an improved financial picture.
And then, crucially: soccer maintaining a larger footprint in Canadian sport.
“We feel like there’s increased momentum and increased reach of how great our players are to support, how great the programs are, how important the youth national team programs are to support, and how important this sport is for the sporting culture in Canada,” Blue said on Wednesday.
Canadian players have repeatedly said they want to change the sport in Canada through this World Cup run. What they might not know — no player could be faulted for not wanting to leaf through the books — is that their performances might actually be doing just that.
Canada, like all teams that qualify for the World Cup, earned $12.5 million ($17.m CAD) just for playing in the tournament. Getting out of the group stage and into the Round of 32? That netted them an additional $2 million ($2.8m CAD).
Their appearance in the Round of 16 led to an additional $4 million ($5.6m CAD).
Per the recently signed CBA with Canada Soccer and the players’ associations, Canada’s men’s national team players will each earn $25,000 per group-stage game. After the group stage, players will earn 50 percent of any prize money awarded from the knockout rounds. That money is split equally between the men’s and women’s players’ associations. The men’s national team players’ association will also get an equal share of the 50 percent awarded for the women’s national team’s appearances in the 2027 World Cup knockout round games. Various coaches’ bones need to be paid for as well.
Add it up, and the World Cup prize money might not seem like a financial windfall. But for an organization that ran a $1.01 million ($1.44m CAD) deficit in 2025 and projected a $4.61 million ($6.55m CAD) surplus in 2026, the prize money is a step in the right direction.
“It’s nonetheless still positive,” Blue said, acknowledging how much of the prize money is quickly diluted. “Having said that, our financial health is predicated on underlying strength of our business model now.”
The question Canada Soccer now have to answer: just how will the additional prize money be spent? And what could the future of the sport in Canada look like with an improved financial picture?
Head coach Jesse Marsch wants to invest money in the next generation of players so appearances in the Round of 16 are less of an anomaly and more of a routine experience.
“The biggest thing we’re dying for in this country is infrastructure for the youth national teams,” Marsch said. “We need a training center, we need full-time youth coaches, we need full- time youth teams, and we need residencies to push the themes of what is necessary for the highest level of international football based on the identity of our players in our country.”
Jesse Marsch wants to see improved infrastructure for youth national teams (Fran Santiago/Getty Images)
Marsch re-signed with Canada Soccer until 2030 before the 2026 World Cup started. Some originally viewed this as a questionable move. Marsch’s Canada could, after all, fall flat on its collective face in the World Cup.
They have not. And that’s led Marsch to grow optimistic about what more money for the organization could lead to under his watch.
“I don’t need more money, I don’t need job security, I don’t need anything that the new contract offers me,” Marsch said. “The reason I did it was because I think that we can continue to have a massive impact on the sport in the country.”
For Canada Soccer, while the prize money awarded by FIFA is a benefit to their books, it’s not the sole driver of positive financial changes for the organization.
A key component of Blue’s time as CEO has been the newfound focus on philanthropy. In September 2025, Canada Soccer announced the Canada Rising campaign, a philanthropic campaign aimed at raising $ 17.6 million ($25m CAD) before the end of 2027 to “help fuel the growth of Canadian soccer.”
Generally speaking, hockey dominates the psyche of Canadian sports fans. Then, trying to raise money to support an organization that was shrouded in controversy and synonymous with underperformance on the men’s side, all at once? An uphill climb, to put it politely.
Yet Canada’s run to the Round of 16 has raised the profile of the men’s national team. And so Blue is hopeful the organization could attract more interest from philanthropic donors.
“People want to support institutions and things that show promise,” Blue said. “The goal that (Eustaquio) scores has immense sporting value and competitive value. It has some direct value in terms of the prize money that you referenced, but this is far dwarfed by the immensity of the attention, the celebratory nature of it nationwide, and soccer’s continually escalating place in the consciousness of corporate Canada and philanthropic Canada, who want to see Canada succeed on sports’ biggest stage.”
That, in turn, could help Canada Soccer blow by its goal of raising $25 million before the end of 2027 and truly change the sport in Canada in a sustainable way.
And so the expectation from Canada Soccer is that there will be more positive changes to the program’s financial picture from philanthropic donations than from the FIFA-awarded prize money. And yet those changes likely could not occur without inspiring World Cup performances.
Blue himself deserves credit for remarkably overhauling Canada Soccer’s financial picture. When Blue was hired in February 2024, the organization was mired in controversy after controversy, had a bleak financial picture, and lacked a full-time men’s national team head coach.
Even with an unprecedented Round of 16 game approaching, Blue deflects praise.
“What I’m most satisfied by in terms of how this tournament has gone specifically,” Blue said, “is that it’s super rewarding for people that have been around this team and this sport for many many many years and have put their blood, sweat and tears into it.”
Canada’s World Cup run has brought a feel-good factor to the sport (Emilee Chinn/Getty Images)
Moving forward, the biggest change from this World Cup could be Canada Soccer opening a national training centre. In June, Canada Soccer launched a formal request for proposals process for the future training centre. The training centre is expected to be a long overdue base for national team programs, which Canada Soccer currently do not have. In May, the U.S. Soccer Federation officially opened the Arthur M. Blank National Training Center in Atlanta.
Canada Soccer expects the request for proposals process to conclude in the fall.
“We already have ideas for residencies and billet programs and we already ideas of who can be our coaches and then how to implement the game at different levels from the men’s and women’s perspective,” Marsch said. “We already, I think, have a lot of the expertise, and now that we can have the financial backing as well, I think we can actually build something.”
The training centre would provide a centralized base for national team programs to train and improve with top-down instilled playing systems.
Perhaps the training centre — and then, possibly the success of national teams in future World Cups — will be the lasting memory from the men’s team’s run to the Round of 16.
Canadian players and Canada Soccer have said they want to change the sport in Canada with this World Cup. And now, there is reason to believe they are.
“It’s a significant priority,” Blue said of the national training centre, “but it’s part of the continued professionalization of the federation. We are using the World Cup as a jumping-off point for further elevation of the business model, the sporting priorities.”
