The Importance of the Players vs CSA Pay Dispute

[JamboAl]

6 hours ago, Obinna said:

After listening to the One Soccer segment from earlier today, my thoughts and feelinga on this are more crystallized:

Everyone should be working together. Villifying the players, the CSB, and even the CSA, is not productive, necessary, or helpful. It's understandable when frusturations are high, but nobody I believe is trying to hold back Canada soccer intentionally. The players want to get paid their worth and want a better CSA, but the CSA wants to be better too. I know that can be hard fo believe, but think about it long enough and you'll have to eventually acknowledge they want the best for Canada Soccer as well. We are all one big family experiencing the struggles and challenges that come with growth, no different than any nuclear family striving for a better future. That includes Media Pro and One Soccer as well.

Everyone is trying their best. We've already created an infrastructure that's coincided with good play on the pitch to combine into the perfect storm. That's how the past +2 years has felt to me, basically since Nations League qualifying. That's part of our story and our come up and so to will this saga, but let's strive to be better, hold ourselves accountable, without tearing ourselves down or throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Let's move forward together.

That's where I am at.

There is no room in this forum for reasonable, pragmatic thought…another outburst like that and you’ll be banned.  🙂

[narduch]

16 minutes ago, Joe1973 said:

Thats the larger point...the WHY part we don't know. But the facts are there...Sunday's well attended game for Canadian men first homecoming game after being one of the best stories in world soccer in 2021-2022, was not available to Canadians on TV who wanted to watch the game. These are just facts.

The why part is that in 2018 none of the traditional sports broadcasters where even interested in the CSA's product. 

In the ensuing 4 years both TSN and Sportsnet have continually decreased their soccer programming 

Edited June 7, 2022 by narduch

[SpecialK]

For me I honestly feel for the players and I understand fans are pissed off about the game got cancelled and people thinking these are a bunch of superstar babies getting pissy about money. But it’s honestly much more than that. Money is a small part of the problem and the easiest one to fix 

1. they really don’t trust the leadership of the CSA to do the right thing and what’s best for soccer in this country. Honestly do you blame them look at that press conference- Bontis lies right to your faces in public.
2. They are pissed off this wasn’t negotiated before- the CSA jerked them around and played games with them since March. 
3. They don’t know the facts and details of the CSB - the rest of the fan base is in the same boat. Big questions there and that goes back to mistrust to lead Canada’s Soccer Future- who’s really in control and who and where is the money going. What did the CSA sell its soul for? 
4. they want equal treatment for women but it sounds like they don’t the women to touch their prize money. I am very divided on that. Because I can understand the problem there. Why does the women deserve their prize money ? The FIFA prize money issue is a FIFA problem not a CSA problem. The women’s team kinda look like an ex wife taking half in the divorce. I want half EDDIE. 
 

I really think the men reach their boiling point and were not going to take the CSA BS anymore. That team is made up between superstars like we have never had before and veterans that been down this road with the CSA way to many times. Players like Davies are young but they are not stupid they understand their value and demand to be respected  and not played with. If I was the CSA I would be very careful not to burn bridge with Davies David and others. Because they could easily say I am out, go screw yourself. The CSA can’t act like they are bigger then their superstars and the CSA made this success because honestly the players and the coaches did the work. Not the CSA! 

Edited June 7, 2022 by SpecialK

[Joe1973]

18 minutes ago, narduch said:

The why part is that in 2018 none of the traditional sports broadcasters where even interested in the CSA's product. 

In the ensuing 4 years both TSN and Sportsnet have continually decreased their soccer programming 

These are things that I don't understand. If I did a quick survey with people I know and asked them which would they rather watch between curling and soccer, I am not a statistician but my guess is that 95%-99% would say soccer? I am seriously not having a go at curling; I just still can't wrap my head around this lack of interest by the sports networks. Anyways it is what it is, and hopefully this changes after Qatar.

[SpecialK]

31 minutes ago, narduch said:

The why part is that in 2018 none of the traditional sports broadcasters where even interested in the CSA's product. 

In the ensuing 4 years both TSN and Sportsnet have continually decreased their soccer programming 

In 2018- we played 4 games vs who ? Why would any traditional media show a game on a cow patch in a tiny Caribbean island or vs New Zealand who brought their B/C team at a windy empty stadium in Spain. We can talk about traditional media not wanting Canada soccer. But let’s be real here! The CSA has not organized a real friendly versus a top opponent in forever. Canada versus Scotland was on TSN. So this argument that traditional media doesn’t want Canada soccer is bullshit. The CSA hasn’t given traditional media a good game to show. I am sorry I pissed off about this argument. If Canada was playing England Germany France Italy etc. you better believe it traditional media would be covering it. 

Edited June 7, 2022 by SpecialK

[Gian-Luca]

1 hour ago, CanadaFan123 said:

If money is the problem, paying the women’s team “equitably” is not the solution that’s for sure. That means double the prize money being paid out every single time.

And it won’t end there. The women should have no more of a claim than para or youth athletes. The solution is that we need separate organizations because in the short/long term our men’s team will be disproportionately disadvantaged in comparison to their peers. 

I mean, if the men feel that they should get their own prize money for the World Cup and not share it with the women and vice versa, I'm in agreement with that in principle - in other words, it should be merit based.

But regardless of how I feel, that isn't the way the world is going with respect to the concept of pay equity, and I think the men are now likely on the hook to pay out an equal share of their own prize money to the women, even if that's not what they actually said in their statement, everywhere I look the media is treating it as though this is what they want. Here's yet another member of the media using the word "equal" despite it not actually appearing in the players "Dear Canada" letter. How is it going to look now if the men's players come out and say "well actually what we mean is effectively 80% for the men on our World Cup money, the women can get 80% of their own prize money, even though that will be significantly less" - which obviously the women have already publicly called them out on in advance.

Also I think Molinaro is out to lunch (and for that matter, breakfast and dinner) if he thinks the players should have been negotiating hard on World Cup prize money bonus months before they had actually qualified. That's not where I would have wanted the mental focus of the players to be during qualification.

[yellowsweatygorilla]

49 minutes ago, El Hombre said:

After seeing Bontis' performance during the press conference, I have a hard time believing that he took the team's proposal(s) seriously at any time between March and June.  I've been in his position and he said basically everything you shouldn't say as a manager of people.  Employees don't want to hear that message nor will they appreciate the way it was delivered.  And the fact that that was his messaging in front of the press only makes me shudder to think how he was in negotiations behind closed doors.  It is not a leap for me to believe that the players felt disrespected and once you disrespect your labour force this is what happens.  

I wrote a bit about Bontis' background in my article from last year regarding CanPL players' union drive - https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/levelling-the-playing-field

Bontis has been involved in LabourWatch quite some time now, an exceptionally infamous conference/organization among labour circles involving management-side law firms and business consultants advising corporations on unionbusting. I've seen Bontis' strong arm tactics many a times, except it's usually in places like Tim Horton's and Walmart, where managers bring a bunch of employees in a backroom to lecture them about the dangers of unionizing and scaring them about repercussions. The point from the players about how they have been trying to meet with Bontis since March to no avail is also a classic unionbusting tactic - the delays and feet dragging is partially meant to break the workers' resolve ... kind of backfired here.

Except Bontis doesn't seem to realize the players here aren't some vulnerable workers he can bully and unlike Walmart, he can't just shut down shop and move to anther town. In fact, he can't even hire a bunch of scabs without destroying the program. His strategy makes sense in the context of his background in consulting, but makes 0 sense in this context. Even if he wins in the PR battle by framing the players as immature brats (and he clearly failed), he would have lost since the program is done if he is unable to reconcile with the players and painting the players into the corner isn't leaving any openings for that unless he resigns.

 

Edited June 7, 2022 by yellowsweatygorilla

[SpecialK]

Someone tell me when was the last time Canada mens team played against a team in the top 35 in the world that wasn’t a CONCACAF team ? has Davies played a game with Canada vs a Top35 nonConcacaf team ?  

[Joe1973]

40 minutes ago, JamboAl said:

There is no room in this forum for reasonable, pragmatic thought…another outburst like that and you’ll be banned.  🙂

I love it! It seems that everybody (including myself) is emptying and venting their years/decades of frustration like a good therapy session. Maybe this was needed

Bottom line, still a fan and always will be one. I still will proudly wear my Team Canada scarf at Montreal FC games because our boys are there, and still gonna scream my ass off in Qatar with my fellow Canadians! We've supported this team through worst times. 

[costarg]

7 hours ago, keysersoze said:

its clear this wasn't well organized and there was obvious collateral damage.

They're pro-soccer players, most of have never held a part-time job.  They're not paid or skilled enough to organize a strike.  How in the hell do you expect them to know those skills?  Something happened and they reacted the best they could given the time they had.  Yes they made mistakes, and that is completely normal.  Need to stop expecting perfection from these lads, they can stop, pass and dribble a ball, they're not super human.

Now the CSA on the other hand is paid to organize, they're the ones who are supposed to have the skills to get this shit done.  Every single road in this story points to Rome.

[SpecialK]

If anyone here truly believes that a big media company like Rogers bell is gonna show a game on a cow patch versus shopkeepers- you need to get your head examined. Now if the CSA said to Rogers and Bell we’re gonna be playing Brazil , Italy, Belgium, England plus we have these small games vs Concacaf teams that we need play plus we have your youth teams playing england, France, US and Mexico and small teams too. So if you want show Davies vs Neymar,  you gonna show Davies vs Shopkeeper Joe. It’s one big package. 
i bet Rogers or bell would really consider a proposal. Especially for 100-200 million dollars over 10 years. 
 

but the CSA doesn’t  book Friendlies vs top teams. The only way to play top teams is in the Olympics or the World Cup. Well Olympics and World Cup sell their media rights to highest bidder and the CSA has no control 

Edited June 7, 2022 by SpecialK

[costarg]

8 hours ago, SpecialK said:

 Like these people that are on the Board of Directors you would think they’re not dumb people. 

I agree, they're certainly not dumb, however I can guarantee they're greedy.  They haven't gotten rid of Bontis because he certainly helped implement the pay structure.  They'd have to admit they agreed with all the crap he helped put in place, they would not come out looking good.  

The people that stand beside the dictator/king with no clothes are equally guilty. 

[SF]

1 hour ago, Joe1973 said:

Thats the larger point...the WHY part we don't know. But the facts are there...Sunday's well attended game for Canadian men first homecoming game after being one of the best stories in world soccer in 2021-2022, was not available to Canadians on TV who wanted to watch the game. These are just facts.

Why would they put a rival network on their channels? Put another way, why would OneSoccer allow that?  They own the rights.

I mean, they did for the last phase of WCQ, but that was a transaction, no?  I suppose they could do it again, but that would mean finding a price point that makes sense.  

These are businesses and they have to play by rules and, if things are OK, make profits - true of Rogers, Bell and, yes, OneSoccer.  

[prairiecanuck]

2 hours ago, CanadaFan123 said:

If money is the problem, paying the women’s team “equitably” is not the solution that’s for sure. That means double the prize money being paid out every single time.

And it won’t end there. The women should have no more of a claim than para or youth athletes. The solution is that we need separate organizations because in the short/long term our men’s team will be disproportionately disadvantaged in comparison to their peers. 

The men's program for decades was running in the red.  The women's program that hosted the world cup in 2015 in Canada has been subsidizing the men's program for a long time.

Now the men are on top and many of the players are new players want to keep all the money.  The women, particularly someone like Christine Sinclair would feel for 2 decades men were receiving money she and her team mates were generating.   The men make far more on club football.   

This is a bad look, particularly when the US has come to an agreement to split US and Men's world cup money equally.  The Canadian men want to take a percentage of their world cup pool and let the women take a percentage of their world cup pool because they've finally qualified for the world cup? 

Anything that grows the sport in the country benefits both the men's and women's teams.  The women won gold and had 4.4 million Canadians watch them.   

The men need to take out the word equitable and replace it with equal.  The men and women should split the world cup pools equally.   

[Addona]

35 minutes ago, Gian-Luca said:

Who's that pictured between Phonzie and Russ??? Look at that diabolical smile ... we may be looking at the mastermind real culprit behind all of this!

[InglewoodJack]

8 hours ago, SpecialK said:

Maybe you’re right, most likely you’re right. I just feel like this has become bigger than the other fuck ups the CSA has done. Like the media coverage has been off the charts. We got the Iran screwup and now this back to back. And zero Board of Directors are saying Time out we need to do something here to right the ship. Like these people that are on the Board of Directors you would think they’re not dumb people. Coming out and firing Nick and saying that he does not represent what this board is about we believe in supporting the players and getting the best deal possible for everyone. Just by that statement alone could fix 45- 50% of the issue here. 

Prefacing this by saying I don’t know much about the CSA execs’ backgrounds, but working with companies of all sizes from different countries, you shouldn’t expect this much competence from Canadian executives. If you’re worth your salt, most of the time you go south or across the ocean. That’s not to say that there aren’t extremely talented business people in Canada, but the assumption shouldn’t be that just because you’re in charge of the soccer association that you’re competent and smart.

[SpecialK]

6 minutes ago, prairiecanuck said:

The men's program for decades was running in the red.  The women's program that hosted the world cup in 2015 in Canada has been subsidizing the men's program for a long time.

What about the 2007 Mens U20 World Cup ? The CSA got a ton of money for that. Ticket sales were very very good. 

[Stryker911]

One thing I have never understood is regarding paying a team to come play us and CSA saying there is no money for that. Why can't we now also request fees to go play other teams? Tunisia is getting reportedly $1,000,000 to play in the Kirin Cup in Japan, which will be 2 games against World Cup bound teams. Why wouldn't we jump at chances like that? 

I realize we don't have the track record of Tunisia, but we certainly have a more marketable team than them. I can guarantee most Japanese soccer fans know who Davies and David are. Tunisia has one guy that played 3 games for Manchester United. The next most well known team is maybe Rubin Kazan in Russia.

In the past 5 years Haiti, El Savador, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama, Costa Rica, and T&T have all played in this tournament. 

I don't see why the players wouldn't be entitled to half of that which is $20,000 each.

[K-Dub]

Current priority is for Canada soccer and the men's team need to get a deal done for the WC to put out the current fire so the team can get back to their preparations for Qatar. 

Once that gets resolved - hopefully very soon, at least for short term (2022) stability, the issue of the competence/capabilities of Canada Soccer and its leadership needs to be addressed. This issue is gaining significant awareness and debate in the wider sporting and public arenas. 

It will be interesting to see if/how long the current leadership can remain in place given the current chaos and crisis of confidence. 

Another example is this article: 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bakx-canada-soccer-iran-panama-1.6479300

[SpursFlu]

All this talk of unions, fair pay etc etc I think everyone is losing the fact that playing for Canada is not these players job. This isn't their source of revenue. Who would even know a lot of these players if it wasn't for playing for Canada outside of supporters of their club. Im not saying they shouldn't be compensated but how many opportunities and financial benefits and just benefits in general come for playing for your country? I think this hyper focus around compensation for playing for your national team will ultimately destroy international football. Because everyone has to admit that rightly or wrongly it wasn't about that before and football has the most robust and most interest in the international side of the game and I'm not just talking about the men's senior team

In fact if these players were really about what they say they're about... they should take all their money from the World Cup and distribute it to Canadian Premier League players or use it to pay players for a new CPL Women's league

Edited June 7, 2022 by SpursFlu

[prairiecanuck]

9 minutes ago, SpecialK said:

What about the 2007 Mens U20 World Cup ? The CSA got a ton of money for that. Ticket sales were very very good. 

Sure, fine 15 years ago that event helped.  I suspect the 2015 event brought in more.  I feel that if we were true capitalists and loooked back at the last 25 years the women have a strong argument.  I take the other side though.  I view putting the shirt on for Canada different than club football.  Even if the men had been incredibly successful the last 20 years and had been subsidizing the women all along I would want an equal split.  I applaud the US for the structure of their deal.  The fact that we have had our reality where the men haven't been bringing in the bacon for the last few decades doesn't give the men a leg to stand on IMO.

I feel like we need to have the CSA, men's representatives and women in one room finalizing this.   We can put a hidden camera in the room and sell some subscriptions for people wanting to watch those discussions.  I'm sure we could raise some money for the CSA..lol!

[Colonel Green]

12 minutes ago, Stryker911 said:

One thing I have never understood is regarding paying a team to come play us and CSA saying there is no money for that. Why can't we now also request fees to go play other teams? Tunisia is getting reportedly $1,000,000 to play in the Kirin Cup in Japan, which will be 2 games against World Cup bound teams. Why wouldn't we jump at chances like that? 

In theory they would have stood to make more from hosting friendlies with reasonably-priced opponents, plus they wanted more domestic exposure for the team.

International friendlies and possible fees are in the cards in the future (though after this I think our odds of booking anybody major in the next window have fallen precipitously).

[Colonel Green]

4 minutes ago, prairiecanuck said:

Sure, fine 15 years ago that event helped.  I suspect the 2015 event brought in more.  I feel that if we were true capitalists and loooked back at the last 25 years the women have a strong argument.  I take the other side though.  I view putting the shirt on for Canada different than club football.  Even if the men had been incredibly successful the last 20 years and had been subsidizing the women all along I would want an equal split.  I applaud the US for the structure of their deal.  The fact that we have had our reality where the men haven't been bringing in the bacon for the last few decades doesn't give the men a leg to stand on IMO.

The men weren’t getting (or asking for) any of the women’s prize money all those years, so I don’t see why they would have any obligation to give the women’s team a share of theirs.

The USMNT absolutely made a nice gesture, but that’s not something anybody should be expected to do. It’s not the men’s team’s fault that the entire planet spends more money on their game.

Edited June 7, 2022 by Colonel Green

[Joe1973]

39 minutes ago, SF said:

Why would they put a rival network on their channels? Put another way, why would OneSoccer allow that?  They own the rights.

I mean, they did for the last phase of WCQ, but that was a transaction, no?  I suppose they could do it again, but that would mean finding a price point that makes sense.  

These are businesses and they have to play by rules and, if things are OK, make profits - true of Rogers, Bell and, yes, OneSoccer.  

Correct...that is the essence of my whole questioning. A potentially sold out game in BC place, homecoming and celebration of the men team's accomplishment, on a Sunday night when Oilers were not playing.

Was there an outreach and they couldn't find a price point? Or there was no attempt to find a price point to show this game to a wider audience? 

[SpursFlu]

What's the average wage in the CPL? What 24 guys will earn in the world Cup would cover an entire roster for an entire CPL season. Seems not right to me