The city of Toronto is defending reselling its World Cup tickets for profit, with the mayor’s office saying the move helps “avoid” spending property taxes on a tournament that has gone over its initial budget and begins Friday.
Shirven Rezvany, a spokesperson for Mayor Olivia Chow’s office, confirmed Monday that the city was selling its share of World Cup tickets, saying that it was “one of several avenues pursued by the City to avoid spending property tax dollars.”
“All host cities were provided this opportunity by FIFA in order to offset costs. Our understanding is that many, if not all, of them did [that],” he said in a written statement.
FIFA controls tickets to the games and gives host cities the opportunity to buy up a portion of ticket packages before they are made available to private ticket sellers.
