FIFA president Sepp Blatter said Thursday night's soccer melee involving Chilean players and Toronto police won't affect Canada's chances of hosting future World Cup events.
Speaking at a jammed news conference on Friday, Blatter urged Canadian soccer officials to proceed with their bid to host the 2011 women's World Cup tournament.
Sepp Blatter told a news conference in Toronto that Canada remains a strong soccer nation despite Thursday night's brawl.
(Paul Chiasson/Canadian Press)
"I think they are right if they ask to organize for the 2011 women's World Cup to be here in this country," said Blatter.
"They will not be the only contender, there will be more contenders, and big ones," he added, naming Australia, France, Germany and Peru.
"So, therefore, the competition is open but the response of the Canadian public to soccer, to football, when women are playing, or men are playing, is so great that really we should consider that Canada could become a soccer country," he said.
The women's 2007 World Cup tournament takes place Sept. 4-10 in China.
The Thursday incident began as Chilean players were about to greet fans after their 3-0 loss to Argentina in a semifinal match at BMO Field.
Police prevented the players from reaching a large fence that separated them from hundreds of angry, chanting fans. There was pushing and shoving, and a Chilean official said police used pepper spray and a Taser to subdue the players and some other members of the country's soccer delegation.
At his news conference, Blatter acknowledged Canada as a "sporting country" with a successful record of organizing Olympics.
"We know how much football has developed in the past so, therefore, it [the brawl] shall not be an incident that should hinder Canada to go forward with other initiatives in football tournaments," he said.
Prior to the FIFA Under-20 event, Canada hosted the men's U-16 tournament in 1987 and the women's U-19 competition in 2002.
On Thursday, FIFA announced that Canada drew a total of 1,156,187 spectators in 50 games, surpassing the previous U-20 record of 1,155,160 in Mexico 24 years ago.
Sold-out crowds for the third-place and championship matches on Sunday should bring the total to nearly 1.2 million spectators over 52 matches, a feat that would more than double any of the last three FIFA U-20 World Cup events.
Blatter hopes Sunday's games will shift the attention away from Thursday's brawl.
"It's regrettable," he said of the brawl. "But it is not the end of football and definitely not the end of Toronto and not the end of Canada.
"We will have two wonderful matches to see, the bronze medal match and the final match, on Sunday, and football will be back at its best, and as soon as possible we will forget what has happened here [Thursday] night."
Argentina plays the Czech Republic in the championship game (CBC, 2:30 p.m. ET) after Chile meets Austria for third place (CBC, noon ET).
With files from the Canadian Press