CANCELLED WC Prep Match #1: Canada vs Iran - Sunday, June 5 BC Place, Vancouver

[Ally McCoist]

23 minutes ago, canucksfan said:

There was a lot of comments all over Canada Soccer's social media about how ashamed people were before this "blew up". The families were already organizing protests. A lot of my coworkers were going to this game, but I also heard a few comments from people who said they had no interest in "supporting" Iran's regime.

How do you think the media got wind of this? It was already brewing. They did their job, which was report on it.

But they were a vocal minority. There were many Iranians who, while they don't support the Iranian regime, were excited to see their athletes play in their country.  

Nobody is denying that what happened to those families was a tragedy. But the truth is that Canada Soccer failed to face the media and gave in to the pressure. There are more reasons why this game should have been played than why this game shouldn't have.

 

[Obinna]

3 hours ago, sose said:

I hear what you are saying.. but the CSA booked the friendly with Iran, and then cancelled it when ish hit the fan.. but yet they are only 10% to blame??? They are 100% responsible for their actions and the decision makers should be accountable.  

Blame the CSA for scheduling the match if you want (I don't), but can you seriously blame them for the "decision" to cancel when the government threatened to slash their funding? 

[canucksfan]

58 minutes ago, Ally McCoist said:

But they were a vocal minority. There were many Iranians who, while they don't support the Iranian regime, were excited to see their athletes play in their country.  

Nobody is denying that what happened to those families was a tragedy. But the truth is that Canada Soccer failed to face the media and gave in to the pressure. There are more reasons why this game should have been played than why this game shouldn't have.

 

I respectfully disagree. There were way more reasons to not play this game than to play it and I think it's important to respect the wishes of these families as it was just two years ago.

I don't think the media did anything wrong in giving voice to the "vocal minority." It's weird that people keep bringing up the media adding fuel to the fire as if somehow that was implicitly a bad thing. These families and their friends and supporters have a very good right to be upset and I admit I was uneducated as to the extent of their pain and loss too – why shouldn't that be in the news? The fact that even more people became upset after becoming aware of it speaks to the fact that CSA really should never have scheduled this game in the first place. 

Edited June 4, 2022 by canucksfan

[Ally McCoist]

9 hours ago, canucksfan said:

I respectfully disagree. There were way more reasons to not play this game than to play it and I think it's important to respect the wishes of these families as it was just two years ago.

I don't think the media did anything wrong in giving voice to the "vocal minority." It's weird that people keep bringing up the media adding fuel to the fire as if somehow that was implicitly a bad thing. These families and their friends and supporters have a very good right to be upset and I admit I was uneducated as to the extent of their pain and loss too – why shouldn't that be in the news? The fact that even more people became upset after becoming aware of it speaks to the fact that CSA really should never have scheduled this game in the first place. 

There are people whose family members were killed in Iraq as a direct result of the US' invasion of Iraq. But we'll still happily play them in a friendly if it came to it (and rightfully so - politics should not be mixed with sports).  

Either we treat every opponent equally political, or we don't mix politics at all.  

Really what it comes down to, is that Iran is geopolitically our enemy (but people don't like to say it). And unfortunately sports and geopolitics have been mixed. They're lumped in the same category as Russia and China. I'll bet you money we'll never play either of those teams in the next 10 years in a friendly.

Edited June 4, 2022 by Ally McCoist

[Obinna]

4 hours ago, canucksfan said:

I don't think the media did anything wrong in giving voice to the "vocal minority." It's weird that people keep bringing up the media adding fuel to the fire as if somehow that was implicitly a bad thing. 

It was a bad thing - from the perspective of wanting Canada to play a fellow World Cup participant. It's only weird because you are choosing to view this from a political/social lense, rather than a sporting lense. You may believe that is the morally rightous thing to do, because some things in life are bigger than sports. I wouldn't blame you for that. Just don't be surprised when others choose not to see it that way, whether it be Canadian supporters like myself, or Canadian players like Cavallini (and possibly others).

We can send our condolences to those victim's loved ones, while putting sport ahead of politics or social issues, if we choose. This was precicely the message of the CSA in response to JT's comments early on, by the way. In fact, it's possible, in my view, that Herdman and/or the CSA felt this way from the beginning, which would explain why they would booked Iran in the first place. Or, they (including Herdman) could simply be dunces who never considered the negative implications.

Only those who worked on this project know the truth, but if that latter explaination cause us cognative dissonance (i.e. how could an intelligent, detail oriented Herdman be responsible for such a dumb decision?), that may not be the most probable explaination. 

Edited June 4, 2022 by Obinna

[prairiecanuck]

Argentina scheduled a game with Estonia after we cancelled our game with Iran.  If we had looked at this as world cup preparation, we could have flown to Spain and played them. 

[narduch]

25 minutes ago, prairiecanuck said:

Argentina scheduled a game with Estonia after we cancelled our game with Iran.  If we had looked at this as world cup preparation, we could have flown to Spain and played them. 

A lot of people would have been pissed here if Estonia was our opponent.

[scooterlawrence5]

This was not just a match against a WC country (Iran) for technical preparation, but a home match where the CSA would earn $3m selling out BC Place.  The CSA planned properly and executed, by securing Iran, negotiating a relatively low appearance fee, and selling out the match. They did all that they were supposed to do. 

The rest was complete unanticipated Trudeau-inspired chaos. Sorry, no one would've predicted any of it!

[prairiecanuck]

56 minutes ago, narduch said:

A lot of people would have been pissed here if Estonia was our opponent.

Well played.  Clearly I meant to play Argentina.  I get it all comes down to dollars.  It's a shame we couldn't do what's right for preparing the team for the world cup.  

[phil03]

Warning for somewhat long post:

Alright, I'd like to preface this by saying that I haven't followed the national team closely for nearly as long as others here probably have and diplomatic relationships between Canada and the Middle-East aren't my area of expertise so take everything I say with a grain of salt. That being said, and being warry to go too deep in the politics since it isn't the subject of expertise, the fact that I am still a guy who did follow it closely recently and who has politics-related job and background I thought about the whole mess quite a bit recently and I landed on the idea that there is a plenty of blame to share all around.

For the Government: Deciding which country is within or outside the bonds when it come to sporting and cultural ties for political reasons should be done publicly and, as much as possible, in common by Canada's civil societies. Would it have been justified to make such a decision with Iran back in 2020? Arguably yes but we didn't, we let their comics, musicians and sports teams in. It isn't like the CSA invited Russia and Afghanistan, for both of which there is an understanding that such an invitation would have been beyond the pale. The CSA thought inviting Iran was ok because that's the signal they got from other sectors of Canadian society and they only get their hand slapped because they have a higher profile now. Failing things being uniform the CSA should have, at the very least, been told that they didn't have governmental go ahead in private and sometimes ago, this isn't what happened. What happened was a Twitter storm that made its way to the House of Commons, leading to the CSA was thrown under the bus, with more then one side of the Canadian political spectrum being opportunistic in the process...

For the CSA: Even if they had every reason to think that inviting Iran was within bound the fact remain that they invited a national team, and one that is politically important to their country's regime to booth, of a country whose government is pretty clearly unpopular in Canada, whose armed forces where recently involved in an unresolved incident that cost the lives of Canadian citizens and who does not have established diplomatic relations with Ottawa. The CSA should have either passed over Iran entirely or built a pretty comprehensive comms plan to deal with the PR and political risks coming with inviting them. That they didn't do either cannot be excused IMO.

For the Iranian Football Federation: I'd argue that what might very well have typed the balance toward cancellation was the Iranians bragging that they would make a profit on it and if they genuinely wanted to happen, which they appear to have done, that was simply a stunning lack of judgement. Just lack the CSA they ought to have know the game was potentially politically sensitive, monitored the situation and not thrown oil on the fire when troubles started in Canada.

For the Iranian Government: Because the whole reason why this is a more then just a game of Soccer with a country we don't like is because of their actions in 2020 and since then...

Essentially, you needed all four of these actors to act in the way they did to land us in the current situation for sure. Just one of them being more responsible about this could have avoided the whole thing.

Edited June 4, 2022 by phil03

[Free kick]

9 hours ago, canucksfan said:

I don't think the media did anything wrong in giving voice to the "vocal minority." It's weird that people keep bringing up the media adding fuel to the fire as if somehow that was implicitly a bad thing. These families and their friends and supporters have a very good right to be upset and I admit I was uneducated as to the extent of their pain and loss too – why shouldn't that be in the news? The fact that even more people became upset after becoming aware of it speaks to the fact that CSA really should never have scheduled this game in the first place. 

However the same media who spent a great deal  of print and airtime giving voice to those who objected to the Canada vs Iran friendly, lambasting the CSA and opining on the subject, is much more muted to the subject of Hockey Canada PRIVATELY settling a lawsuit with a woman who alleged she was sexually assaulted by multiple members of our national junior hockey team.   The hypocrisy here is astounding, why the hell is a national sports association protecting individuals who have allegedly committed a crime...... Is this within the mandate of an national amateur sports association?   Imagine if the stories were reversed?    

 

Canadian government Hockey Canada settled lawsuit - TSN.ca

 

Sports minister orders investigation after Hockey Canada settles sex assault lawsuit - TSN.ca

 

 

Edited June 4, 2022 by Free kick

[Mitchryan11]

19 minutes ago, Free kick said:

However the same media who spent a great deal  of print and airtime giving voice to those who objected to the Canada versus Iran friendly, lambasting the CSA and opining on the subject, is much more muted to the subject of Hockey Canada PRIVATELY settling a lawsuit with a woman who alleged she was sexually assaulted by multiple members of our national junior hockey team.   The hypocrisy here is astounding, why the hell is a national sports association protecting individuals who have allegedly committed a crime...... Is this within the mandate of an national amateur sports association?   Imagine if the stories were reversed?    

 

Canadian government Hockey Canada settled lawsuit - TSN.ca

 

Sports minister orders investigation after Hockey Canada settles sex assault lawsuit - TSN.ca

 

 

Privately when its broadcasted on tsn lol, were any of those players even found criminally guilty or are they just settling out of court so their names and reputations arent put through the mud even if they didnt do it 

[Free kick]

40 minutes ago, Mitchryan11 said:

Privately when its broadcasted on tsn lol, were any of those players even found criminally guilty or are they just settling out of court so their names and reputations arent put through the mud even if they didnt do it 

Huh!  But why are they doing that?  Why not let the legal authorities resolve the issue?   Since when is it in purview of a national sports association to shield its players from criminal wrong doing?  I am astounded by your reply

Edited June 4, 2022 by Free kick

[Mitchryan11]

1 minute ago, Free kick said:

Huh!  But why are they doing that?????   Why not let the legal authorities resolve the issue?   Since when is it in purview of a national sports association to shield its players from criminal wrong doing?  I am astounded by your reply

Because the alleged victim accepted the plea and didn't feel confident enough to go to criminal court. If she reported the crime when it happened their would be ample evidence to convict the players and it would be over with

[Free kick]

9 minutes ago, Mitchryan11 said:

Because the alleged victim accepted the plea and didn't feel confident enough to go to criminal court. If she reported the crime when it happened their would be ample evidence to convict the players and it would be over with

But why did HC even have to spend a cent on this thing?   if its strictly between the victim and the accused,  then fine no issues there.   But HC does get public funds and did pay to settle a lawsuit.

Edited June 4, 2022 by Free kick

[Mitchryan11]

13 minutes ago, Free kick said:

But why did HC even have to spend a cent on this thing?   if its strictly between the victim and the accused,  then fine no issues there.   But HC does get public funds and did pay to settle a lawsuit.

i dunno bro

[SpecialK]

If I was the CSA I would be worried government going after the CSA and the  all the abuse that happen in Vancouver and how the CSA handled things. I think it’s  just the beginning. If the government is going after powerful hockey Canada, they are going after everyone and rightfully so! 
 

https://www.tsn.ca/women-s-national-team-calls-on-canada-soccer-to-stand-against-culture-of-abuse-1.1710535?tsn-amp

Edited June 4, 2022 by SpecialK

[Olympique_de_Marseille]

At least CONCACAF wasn't the one to cancel their friendly.

That's what happened to Jamaica:

https://www.caribbeannationalweekly.com/sports/concacaf-forces-cancellation-of-jamaica-vs-uruguay-friendly/

[narduch]

41 minutes ago, Olympique_de_Marseille said:

At least CONCACAF wasn't the one to cancel their friendly.

That's what happened to Jamaica:

https://www.caribbeannationalweekly.com/sports/concacaf-forces-cancellation-of-jamaica-vs-uruguay-friendly/

This is interesting as it dispels the myth that we could have sent a B squad to NL instead and played a friendly at the same time

[canucksfan]

9 hours ago, Obinna said:

It was a bad thing - from the perspective of wanting Canada to play a fellow World Cup participant. It's only weird because you are choosing to view this from a political/social lense, rather than a sporting lense. You may believe that is the morally rightous thing to do, because some things in life are bigger than sports. I wouldn't blame you for that. Just don't be surprised when others choose not to see it that way, whether it be Canadian supporters like myself, or Canadian players like Cavallini (and possibly others).

We can send our condolences to those victim's loved ones, while putting sport ahead of politics or social issues, if we choose. This was precicely the message of the CSA in response to JT's comments early on, by the way. In fact, it's possible, in my view, that Herdman and/or the CSA felt this way from the beginning, which would explain why they would booked Iran in the first place. Or, they (including Herdman) could simply be dunces who never considered the negative implications.

Only those who worked on this project know the truth, but if that latter explaination cause us cognative dissonance (i.e. how could an intelligent, detail oriented Herdman be responsible for such a dumb decision?), that may not be the most probable explaination. 

 

I never said that there weren't good sporting reasons to have this opponent. I'm gutted that I won't see two top 40 countries play a match in a sold out BC Place. It would have been a massive event. I said it's weird precisely because football has always been intertwined with politics, even in Europe, and all of a sudden people are surprised? We can hope all we want for sport to be free of politics, but it never has been. Maybe it's also possible to look at both the sports and social perspective and simply come to a very different conclusion than you. Sometimes moral and social issues might absolutely be bigger than sport. It's the circumstances in this case that caused the uproar once it all became public. This was 2 years ago, it directly hurt a lot of local families, there were links made between one of the people travelling with the team and a kidnapping attempt, and we were paying Iran a lot of money. I think those facts being (completely rightly) publicized is what caused a lot of people to become upset. It wasn't just "oh we're playing Iran, no bueno."

Don't know why you brought up Cavallini specifically, when it also became public that other players were concerned about this match. So you also shouldn't be surprised when there are supporters like myself, or players other than Cavallini who think this game was also justifiably cancelled and that CSA made a major mistake in in scheduling it, and that saying it's Trudeau-inspired or media-inspired chaos is ignoring the reality of what happened or why people responded the way they did to this game once there was more awareness of the details, which the public has a right to know about.

It's fine to be sad this game was cancelled in terms of our World Cup preparations and also understanding that it probably should never have been scheduled in the first place.

I'm going to move on to the Panama game, which I'm happy we were able to schedule.

[Ally McCoist]

47 minutes ago, canucksfan said:

 

I never said that there weren't good sporting reasons to have this opponent. I'm gutted that I won't see two top 40 countries play a match in a sold out BC Place. It would have been a massive event. I said it's weird precisely because football has always been intertwined with politics, even in Europe, and all of a sudden people are surprised? We can hope all we want for sport to be free of politics, but it never has been. Maybe it's also possible to look at both the sports and social perspective and simply come to a very different conclusion than you. Sometimes moral and social issues might absolutely be bigger than sport. It's the circumstances in this case that caused the uproar once it all became public. This was 2 years ago, it directly hurt a lot of local families, there were links made between one of the people travelling with the team and a kidnapping attempt, and we were paying Iran a lot of money. I think those facts being (completely rightly) publicized is what caused a lot of people to become upset. It wasn't just "oh we're playing Iran, no bueno."

Don't know why you brought up Cavallini specifically, when it also became public that other players were concerned about this match. So you also shouldn't be surprised when there are supporters like myself, or players other than Cavallini who think this game was also justifiably cancelled and that CSA made a major mistake in in scheduling it, and that saying it's Trudeau-inspired or media-inspired chaos is ignoring the reality of what happened or why people responded the way they did to this game once there was more awareness of the details, which the public has a right to know about.

It's fine to be sad this game was cancelled in terms of our World Cup preparations and also understanding that it probably should never have been scheduled in the first place.

I'm going to move on to the Panama game, which I'm happy we were able to schedule.

You are omitting a lot of information in your logic:   

1. The only politics I can think of in int'l football are certain matches that are restricted by FIFA for political reasons. These are matches between 2 countries that are not allowed to ever happen due to naturally present security threats (e.g. Russia vs Ukraine even before the war started, Spain vs Gibraltar, Armenia vs Azerbaijan, etc). Hell, even North Korea vs South Korea occurred last year during the Asia WCQ. The cancelation of Canada vs Iran was the CSA shooting themselves in the foot, not FIFA forcing them to cancel. This is different than the "politics" you're referring to. 

2. The "kidnapping" thing you're referring to is just 2 guys who happened to be at the same party who aren't directly connected to each other. Just because you're at a large event, doesn't mean you agree with the views of every person at said event. 

3. We're paying the Iranian soccer federation, not the Iranian government. Whatever the soccer federation decides to do with that money is none of our business. We already do the exact same thing with Saudi Arabia and selling weapons to them. We clearly don't care what KSA does with those weapons. 

4. Osorio was the only person who spoke out. You have no idea how any of the other players feel and it's not fair for you to assume they all hold the same views. I bet you any money they would have all loved to play Iran. Of course we'll never truly know.

[Unnamed Trialist]

4 hours ago, Olympique_de_Marseille said:

At least CONCACAF wasn't the one to cancel their friendly.

That's what happened to Jamaica:

https://www.caribbeannationalweekly.com/sports/concacaf-forces-cancellation-of-jamaica-vs-uruguay-friendly/

First, the news out of Uruguay is that they rejected the proposal because Jamaica was going to send u23s and NCAA players. Uruguay wanted it as some sort of commemorative match and decided the rival wasn't up to par. 

Read that on Uruguay sites. So not a Concacaf decision, or not entirely. 

Second, the Jamaica team vs Catalonia was weakish (as were many of the call-ups this qualifying round) but did have some of the better players. And Catalonia started only with players from La Liga, EPL (Cucurella, Romeu), Deulofeu in Serie A, a team on paper as good as ours even, so it's totally mistaken to say the team was fringe. 

We have to be thankful however we went for Panama over them, as they're inconsistent. 

Edited June 4, 2022 by Unnamed Trialist

[Obinna]

49 minutes ago, canucksfan said:

 

I never said that there weren't good sporting reasons to have this opponent. I'm gutted that I won't see two top 40 countries play a match in a sold out BC Place. It would have been a massive event. I said it's weird precisely because football has always been intertwined with politics, even in Europe, and all of a sudden people are surprised? We can hope all we want for sport to be free of politics, but it never has been. Maybe it's also possible to look at both the sports and social perspective and simply come to a very different conclusion than you. Sometimes moral and social issues might absolutely be bigger than sport. It's the circumstances in this case that caused the uproar once it all became public. This was 2 years ago, it directly hurt a lot of local families, there were links made between one of the people travelling with the team and a kidnapping attempt, and we were paying Iran a lot of money. I think those facts being (completely rightly) publicized is what caused a lot of people to become upset. It wasn't just "oh we're playing Iran, no bueno."

Don't know why you brought up Cavallini specifically, when it also became public that other players were concerned about this match. So you also shouldn't be surprised when there are supporters like myself, or players other than Cavallini who think this game was also justifiably cancelled and that CSA made a major mistake in in scheduling it, and that saying it's Trudeau-inspired or media-inspired chaos is ignoring the reality of what happened or why people responded the way they did to this game once there was more awareness of the details, which the public has a right to know about.

It's fine to be sad this game was cancelled in terms of our World Cup preparations and also understanding that it probably should never have been scheduled in the first place.

I'm going to move on to the Panama game, which I'm happy we were able to schedule.

I was saying you are choosing not to view it those terms, not that you were incapable of doing so. If you feel I accused you of the latter, I apologize for the confusion.

But you can see the sporting reasons to have this opponent, so I am not sure what you take issue with exactly? Do you take issue with people for choosing to see it from a sporting perspective?

Either way, fair enough. I agree we should be able to respectfully move on and hold opposing on what transpired and who is to blame, etc.

I brought up Cavallini specifically because I believe his thoughts best reflect how the players felt about playing the match. Like I said before, the players were only concerned about the match due to the PR backlash, not because they wanted to take a moral stand against it. I have no reason to believe they would have issued a statement had it not been for the negative PR. They were fully ready and looking forward to playing the game, I believe. Cavallni's statement suggests that. If you don't believe that, it's okay.

As for the media-inspired chaos aspect to this, I respectfully disagree with what you are saying. Pointing out that media "fanned the flames" is not tantamount to ignoring the reality of what happened. I don't believe anyone here is ignoring the atrocity that occured. Everyone has acknowledged it's terrible. Like you said, the media did their job by giving the protestors a voice, but that doesn't mean in doing so they didn't exaserbate the groundswell of discontent that was brewing on social media. They absolutely did and it fanned the flames, so to speak, but perhaps you simply take issue with putting it on those terms, which I understand.

Cheers! 

[Obinna]

Hard to imagine there wasn't more to this in light of the pay dispute....

[JohnnyFranchise]

Bumping this thread was completely gratuitous 🤣