Continuing our ultra-early look at possible candidates for the Canadian Soccer Association president, we come now to … the president of the CSA.
I’ve already said my piece on Dr. Dominique Maestracci, and his recent performance in the role. It’s here, if you want it.
What’s more important now is to assess the deeper implications of a new Maestracci candidacy in 2012.
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Maestracci was the last man standing in 2007, when former CSA president Colin Linford resigned. Linford was intensely reform-minded, and pushed very hard to free the CSA board from its old and current structure, one weighted heavily towards the presidents of all the provincial and territorial soccer associations.
Linford pushed too hard, too fast, and saw his reforms sandbagged and scuppered by the board. And while it’s very hard to find anyone within the Canadian game who actually feels Linford’s smash-and-crash approach was ever going to work, his departure – and Maestracci’s ascension – sent a chilling message to CSA critics that real reform was at least another generation away.
Not so, as it turned out.
The CSA Governance Committee, under the stewardship of CSA VP Rob Newman, brought in a stunning, sweeping series of reforms. At blinding speed – any progress seemed blinding after the previous decades of CSA glaciations – we suddenly found ourselves with an entirely new structure, which will be enacted this May.
If Maestracci aided this reform in any tangible way at all, no one within Metcalfe Street is talking about it. The overwhelming sense I’m left with is that Maestracci may have been in the ceremonial driver’s seat, but the actual navigation and course-plotting were being done by others.
Ditto, by the way, for Canada’s headline-making landing of the 2015 Women’s World Cup.
In retrospect, the single most important, ice-shattering CSA decision of Maestracci’s presidency was the hiring of Peter Montopoli as the organization’s general secretary. Ever since Montopoli stepped onto the bridge, Ye Goode Shippe CSA has floated higher, and sailed better.
But how will the waters sit if Maestracci runs again?
Off-the-record criticism of Maestracci’s captaincy – within the CSA board and among well-placed observers – is rampant. His leadership and decision-making are under heavy fire. It’s hard to find anyone who actually supports the man.
That said, there is some praise, too. I’ve been told Maestracci has a deep and formidable knowledge and understanding of the CSA by-laws. And it may have been exactly that which led him to take some hugely against-the-grain stands during last year’s painful governance dispute within the Alberta Soccer Association.
But the man’s communications skills are not sharp. E-mails and other direct communications seem vague, and are difficult to understand. Even when translated by the CSA media staff, they don’t ring clear.
If you’re going to go to the wall with a rogue interpretation of the rulebook – and you’re right! – you have to be able to communicate that clearly.
When I e-mailed him directly about an Alberta judge’s ruling that his conduct in the ASA dispute could, in the darkest light, be interpreted as criminal, he e-mailed me back saying he was referring the entire matter to the legal staff at FIFA.
While I really don’t think he was actually threatening me – it’s perfectly legal in this country to quote any judge’s ruling – I still don’t entirely know for sure. I’m not concerned, in other words, but I remain baffled.
At a time when presidential clarity was essential, it simply wasn’t there.
Enough commentary. Let me ask a question:
What will the effect of another term of Dominique Maestracci be on CSA governance reform?
I’m been communicating quite a bit lately with folks who are actually charged with enacting the new board. Key to this will be the selection of six appointed CSA directors – three this May, three in 2013.
Nominations for the first three seats are open until May 8 – three days after the president the rest of the CSA board are elected.
The question I’m hearing – from within Metcalfe Street – is rather profoundly procedural. It boils down to – how can we approach business and promotions experts from outside Canadian soccer and ask them to be part of these big changes, if there is no change whatsoever at the top?
Good question.
I’m told the stated reason Maestracci may seek re-election is that he would like to preside over the Women’s World Cup which Canada landed on his watch. A ceremonial function, in other words.
But ceremony isn’t what the next few years of CSA governance is going to be about. Polar opposite, in fact – a move away from ceremony, and towards nuts-and-bolts, day-to-day functionality.
And however charitable I might truly want to be, that is absolutely going to require a new man at the top.
Onward!