Bob Mackin
Despite a new policy discouraging business with U.S. suppliers, Toronto city hall could buy $10.7 million of FIFA World Cup 26 tickets, suites and lounges from a New York company run by Donald Trump’s former manager and part-owned by Trump’s Secretary of Education.
Toronto’s FIFA World Cup 2026 Subcommittee recommended on March 18 that city council buy the hospitality packages. City council is expected to decide March 26.
A staff report said MLSE, the owner of Toronto FC and operator of BMO Field, is the contracted commercial sales agent for the program. But the name of FIFA’s official hospitality provider, On Location Events LLC, was not mentioned in the report or at the subcommittee meeting.
TKO’s Ari Emanuel (second from right) with UFC’s Dana White and WWE’s Vince McMahon outside the New York Stock Exchange on Sept. 12, 2023 (NYSE/IG)
Toronto city hall confirmed to theBreaker.news that “it is securing the assets” from On Location.
“The vendor was not named in the report because it was not material to the recommendations before committee,” senior communications advisor Elise von Scheel said by email.
Vancouver city hall, which does not conduct World Cup business in open meetings, is “still evaluating that opportunity” to buy packages from On Location, said Natasha Qereshniku of Vancouver’s World Cup secretariat.
In February, TKO Group Holdings Inc. completed the acquisition of On Location, bringing it under the same corporate umbrella as UFC and WWE, two companies that count Trump as a fan. In December, Trump’s Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, reported owning more than $50 million in TKO shares and receiving between $1 million and $5 million in dividends.
TKO CEO Ari Emanuel represented Trump when he hosted The Apprentice on NBC.
At the Endeavor Group in 2015, Emanuel bought the Miss Universe Organization from Trump. In 2021 and 2022, Elon Musk was a member of Endeavor’s board of directors.
A pamphlet attached to FIFA host city contracts details the “rights and assets” available to host committees, including the opportunity to buy up to 1.5% of the available tickets for each match at the host city’s stadium.
“These tickets can be used to assist fundraising efforts and included as part of a host city supporter package,” said the FIFA pamphlet.
FIFA also provides host committees with 175 to 250 complimentary VIP tickets at each match the city hosts. Host cities are also eligible for a small amount of tickets at matches they don’t host — including four to the final. Those tickets are not available for public purchase and cannot be resold.
Seven matches are scheduled for Vancouver and six in Toronto during the June and July 2026 tournament. Eleven U.S. cities and three in Mexico are also hosts.
On March 7, Trump welcomed FIFA president Gianni Infantino to the Oval Office and announced a Department of Homeland Security-led task force.
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