It all started earlier this year, when the Canadian Soccer Association’s Constitution Committee came out with a sweeping new blueprint for the governance of the beautiful game in this country.
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Matters on Metcalfe Street have tended to take a turn for the responsible since Peter Montopoli took over as CSA general secretary – but the broad and sweeping nature of the proposed reforms took most of us by surprise.
The new governance model calls for the elimination of all provincial and territorial soccer association members from the CSA board. Regional reps would be part of the new structure, but would have to be unaffiliated with the local SA’s.
I’ve also been told the new model sets minimum qualifications for CSA executive members – requirements that many of the present group simply do not meet.
And that’s about when things went nuts in Alberta.
The old guard in the Alberta Soccer Association are not in favour of reform. But due to just the way things go sometimes, they were caught inconveniently out of power when the Constitution Committee bombshell hit the boardroom.
A reform-minded ASA president, Chris Billings, looked sure to be a key vote in favour of the new governance model at the CSA’s 2010 annual general meeting.
He never made it. (Well, I’m told he got there physically, but was not allowed to vote.)
The Alberta old guard – led by Edmonton Minor Soccer Association president Mario Charpentier – accused Billings of various degrees of not-niceness, and managed to get him deposed. Billings refused to acknowledge their authority, and now we have two warring Alberta Soccer Associations, with the whole mess likely to be sorted out in the courts.
In the meantime, several Alberta youth soccer clubs withheld their fees, and were stripped of tournament-hosting rights, forcing many relocations and/or cancellations.
The old guard showed up at the CSA AGM in Winnipeg in May, and duly voted against the reforms. Quebec lined up with them, but none of that was enough to stop the majority of the board from backing the proposals.
Ah, but this was not the final vote. That comes up next year some time.
For the moment, the Alberta mess – however distasteful – has yet to seriously damage the Canadian game. (Anywhere outside of Alberta, that is.)
But it is dangerously early. I'm told two other provinces (Manitoba, Nova Scotia) may be lining up in opposition. If Billings is being unfairly denied his voice, that could be enough to sink the whole deal.
So I want us all to join forces to do something about it.
I’m not going to insult you and try to tell you which side of the reform debate I think you ought to be on. I am very strongly pro-reform, but I will be just one voice in the upcoming conversation. Anti-reform voices are very welcome here, as well.
No one involved in this story has been in any hurry at all to answer questions from anyone. A cone of backroom secrecy has descended, and that has rarely been good news for Canada’s national soccer teams.
With the launch of canadiansoccernews.com, we have a large, unified stage for important Canadian soccer discussions. And there aren’t many issues more important right now than this one.
Tell ya what I’m gonna do:
Beginning Monday, I’m going to draft a weekly series of public letters. These will be addressed – as Onward! columns – to Mario Charpentier (Dec. 6), Chris Billings (Dec. 13) and CSA director-at-large Mike Traficante, a past-president of the ASA (Dec. 20).
The letters will pose questions – to do with CSA reform and the role of provincial reps on the national stage.
These gentlemen will be invited to clarify their positions – and advised that any and all responses will be considered to be on the record, and will be printed in full.
I’m not all that confident they will answer. But that doesn’t mean all the rest of us can’t get a wide-ranging and informative conversation going -- in the comments section following each item.
The more info all of us round up and publish, the more open letters will go out. With each letter, each discussion, each new revelation, we can – bit by bit – ratchet up the pressure.
And that could actually make a difference. It’s very hard to keep all the knife work in the back room when an increasingly bright public spotlight is seeping, bit by inconvenient bit, into the shadowy hidden realm.
It is clear to me that Canada’s soccer bureaucrats should be working for the game. It is even clearer that, in Alberta, the game is now working for the bureaucrats.
So let’s start a conversation right here, right now. Are you in favour of CSA governance reform? Should the provincial reps be hoofed? Who, by rights, should be running the ASA?
Now that you’re all here – let’s hear from all of you.
(Oh, and Mario? You’re up!)
Onward!