Rougeisthecolour Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 This is a pretty interesting article from Rick Westhead. https://www.tsn.ca/world-cup-bonus-fight-exposes-battles-over-canada-soccer-transparency-governance-1.1824428 Scottie, Free kick, Stryker911 and 6 others 6 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stryker911 Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 22 minutes ago, Rougeisthecolour said: This is a pretty interesting article from Rick Westhead. https://www.tsn.ca/world-cup-bonus-fight-exposes-battles-over-canada-soccer-transparency-governance-1.1824428 The more I hear about Bontis and Cochrane, the more I realize they are goin to destroy this team. narduch, ghostknownunknown, SirBobsaget and 3 others 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SF Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 Interesting to say the least. And not at all reassuring. What a mess. sstackho 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gian-Luca Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 (edited) Not sure what to make of that article, the alleged quote from Bontis about CSB "leeching away" all of the CSA's revenue seems impossible to believe, and I note isn't actually in quotes, which smacks highly of the writer putting words into his mouth. Given how outspoken Bontis is and how many ill-advised finger-pointing comments he made at that press conference, its tough to see why putting words in his mouth would be necessary. It puts the whole article's veracity and motivations into question. As for the men's team, if they really do want to keep to their "equal percentage" rather than equal pay with the women for the respective WCQ prize money, I think the best thing their legal representative can do is to point out that the equal pay for equal work has a serious flaw in it because of the different respective efforts involved. The men had to play 19 games before they qualified for the World Cup, the women just played 2, which one could make the pro-rating argument for given the huge disparity involved in the required level of work. However, because the men brought up the issue themselves to the media, I still think they are SOL on this issue now. Edited July 12, 2022 by Gian-Luca Ivan, jhoops__, johnyb and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SF Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 The men won't get more money than the women. They may deserve or they may not. but it simply won't be palatable in Canada in 2022. The sooner they recognize this, the better pleased they will be to advance their collective cause with the CSA, which appears to be one of the all time dog and pony show organizations. The details in the article around governance are incredible (I am a professional director, so have some decent perspective, I think). To see former board members speak on the record about the governance approach is almost unheard of - I am utterly gobsmacked. And the details they share (e.g. CSB contract not being ratified by the board) suggest clear negligence of fiduciary obligation. Not sure what to make of news articles sometimes, but if I were a director of the CSA I would run for the hills (and make sure my ass was covered). JamboAl, Rougeisthecolour, PegCityCam and 2 others 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unnamed Trialist Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 2 minutes ago, SF said: The men won't get more money than the women. They may deserve or they may not. but it simply won't be palatable in Canada in 2022. The sooner they recognize this, the better pleased they will be to advance their collective cause with the CSA, which appears to be one of the all time dog and pony show organizations. The details in the article around governance are incredible (I am a professional director, so have some decent perspective, I think). To see former board members speak on the record about the governance approach is almost unheard of - I am utterly gobsmacked. And the details they share (e.g. CSB contract not being ratified by the board) suggest clear negligence of fiduciary obligation. Not sure what to make of news articles sometimes, but if I were a director of the CSA I would run for the hills (and make sure my ass was covered). That part about covering your ass did lend credence to your claim to be a professional director, which is why I liked the comment 😉 SF 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gator Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 What a total mess, I don't even want to think about worst case scenarios here because there are too many! Rougeisthecolour, TOcanadafan and narduch 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Free kick Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 (edited) 51 minutes ago, Gian-Luca said: As for the men's team, if they really do want to keep to their "equal percentage" rather than equal pay with the women for the respective WCQ prize money, I think the best thing their legal representative can do is to point out that the equal pay for equal work has a serious flaw in it because of the different respective efforts involved. The men had to play 19 games before they qualified for the World Cup, the women just played 2, which one could make the pro-rating argument for given the huge disparity involved in the required level of work. However, because the men brought up the issue themselves to the media, I still think they are SOL on this issue now. One could argue this in another way as well. If you look at it in a broader way than just WCQ matches by factoring in the amount of training camps/practice sessions that each of the teams must attend and include the fact that the women play at the Olympics and this factors into the "required level of work". If you add these, you can make a case for equal pay for equal work. PS.: Also, it can be argued that its the relative success of the Women's team is what contributes to the fact that they dont have to play as many WCQ matches. the men had to play 19 games in large part because their ranking was lower. Edited July 12, 2022 by Free kick narduch and TOcanadafan 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ted Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 1 hour ago, Rougeisthecolour said: This is a pretty interesting article from Rick Westhead. https://www.tsn.ca/world-cup-bonus-fight-exposes-battles-over-canada-soccer-transparency-governance-1.1824428 It is very interesting and clarifies a lot. Good reporting from TSN. sstackho and johnyb 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gian-Luca Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 5 minutes ago, Free kick said: One could argue this in another way as well. If you look at it in a broader way than just WCQ matches by factoring in the amount of training camps/practice sessions that each of the teams must attend and include the fact that the women play at the Olympics and this factors into the "required level of work". If you add these, you can make a case for equal pay for equal work. PS.: Also, it can be argued that its the relative success of the Women's team is what contributes to the fact that they dont have to play as many WCQ matches. the men had to play 19 games in large part because their ranking was lower We are talking about WCQ prize money though, so you'd think that has to be restricted to the work required for successful qualification. I asked in another thread weeks ago what happens if one team qualifies for a WC and the other doesn't - is there still equal pay with the unsuccessful team getting half of the prize money that the successful team got in qualifying for the WC? I was met with radio silence on that one and I still don't know the answer to it. It's a moot point now thankfully as the women have also qualified for their respective WC in this cycle. The women's national team get "Own the Podium" money for qualifying for the Olympics which the men's national team can not possibly get since they aren't allowed to qualify for the Olympics, along with every other men's national team. I doubt anyone is arguing though that the men should get half of the Own the Podium money, and that's presumably because people still believe that the concept of merit has a part to play in all this. Even if Canada was at the top of the FIFA rankings among Concacaf teams, they would still have played a 14 game WCQ cycle and likely could not possibly have clinched qualification until at least 9 of those games had played, which still isn't equal to 2. So that argument will not wash either. All this means that it is far trickier situation than simply saying it should be "equal pay for equal work". I am still inclined to agree that the optics of the situation in this particular country we live in will mean that it won't matter and the men will likely have to accept getting less prize money, since it will likely be equal pay rather than the "equal percentage" of the respective prize money that they were demanding, even though there's a huge argument for equal percentage being more equitable given the disparity in work involved (and I haven't even brought up the level of competition that the Women faced in those two games - it was a bit like the men qualifying for the World Cup after only playing Bermuda and the Cayman Islands). Kent, Free kick and gator 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TOcanadafan Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 From the TSN article: ”Canada Soccer’s board discussed the prospective deal with CSB during a September 2018 board meeting. Fequet said Bontis joined the meeting via conference call from Aruba. According to Fequet, several board members told Bontis and Reed that the board wanted a number of questions answered before they would approve the contract. But three months later, when the board reconvened in December 2018, Bontis insisted that the board had approved the deal. When Fequet said requests made by the board were outstanding and asked for a review of the meeting minutes from September, board members were told that an executive assistant had not made an audio recording of that meeting because of equipment problems.” It would help if we had some clarity here. Do minutes exist from this Sept. 2018 meeting? Which board members attended? Was there a discussion and vote on the CSB deal? Were details of the prospective deal given to board members in advance of this meeting? If there was doubt (about the deal itself - i.e. was it discussed and approved?) why wasn’t there more of a fuss at the Dec. 2018 meeting? Does the President have authority to sign off on such a deal without a board vote? As a minor aside, I’d also love to know the general level of engagement of board members? johnyb, narduch and sstackho 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TOcanadafan Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 (edited) 33 minutes ago, Gian-Luca said: All this means that it is far trickier situation than simply saying it should be "equal pay for equal work". Yes, there are many points to debate and it’s not even as simple as calculating a total number of hours. So why even bother to squabble? At the end of the day, the ‘right thing to do’, the simplest, and what’s best for optics is to just split player % of annual revenue 50/50. The highest paid women’s soccer player in the world is making just over $500,000. As the rise of the CMNT continues, it’s likely not going to be too long before any regular men’s team member is not making less than this. We all know being a member of a successful national team helps with club opportunities (and thus club salary), plus individuals can make their own marketing money. I’m sure some Canadian bank could design some add campaign behind a nice ‘kumbaya’ between the men and the women and it could be milked for a while. It’s probably more advantageous at this point to join forces with the women (who seem to have their s__ together) and fight together against the CSA for the highest combined % they can get. Edited July 12, 2022 by TOcanadafan gator, Ivan and johnyb 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ted Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 What I posted in the CSB Thread: FIFA Money For some bizarre reason, Bontis is claiming that CSB is the reason that they cannot spend the $10M from FIFA for qualifying. From the article: Quote CSB was scheduled to pay $3.05 million to Canada Soccer in 2020. But because national team games and other events were canceled due to the pandemic, CSB said it would not make that payment in full. Cochrane confirmed that CSB paid Canada Soccer about $1.2 million that year. That makes a shortfall of $1.85M but there also should have been far fewer expenses to cover for the national teams who were not playing. But fine, let’s take that full number at face value. Covering the short payment would take 18.5% of the $10M The players want 40% which adds up to 58.5% of the money allocated and therefore the CSA keeps 41.5% of the FIFA money. We should also keep in mind that CSB will have to make up the short payment at some point or lose the deal entirely Ownership There are 8 teams in the CanPL in 2022. Two are owned by “CFL Owners” (Winnipeg and Hamilton). Given that Winnipeg is a community owned team I fail to see how the CSB deal can be described as, “leeching the money from the success of the national teams and funneling it to CFL team owners”.The Deal At the time the CSA signed the deal with CSB even the most die-hard fans would admit that qualifying for 2022 was a tough ask. There were so many people here claiming that John Herdman was going to fail utterly that the consensus was 2022 was great goal but 2026 was what mattered. Yes, Phonzie was doing great things but one star player does not a team make. As it turns out of course, John Herdman built a winning squad that was able to get results even without Phonzie when he was injured. Could the deal have been better and included performance clauses? You bet. Bottom line for me is, the CSB is the only reason we have a domestic league and that is a good thing. I am happy to revive the SACK THE CSA campaign, but I will not support destroying a professional league that we have needed so badly for decades and we will need to build our team into actual contenders. The Real Marc, red card, DoyleG and 2 others 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhoops__ Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 Two things here: 1) The players should unionize immediately. 2). Full federal gov inquiry into the CSA Operations. Have to get to the bottom of this or we’ll never recover and properly move forward. Sal333, ted, ag futbol and 1 other 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpursFlu Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 (edited) Think about people's issue. Just really think about it. There really is no problem. As it stands right now.. there is absolutely no problem. There is absolutely no skin off anyone's back here in this forum. It does not have anything to do with you Just people looking to be miserable and won't rest until everyone else joins them in the pitty committee 10 years ago we were nowhere near the World Cup and we were nowhere near having a professional soccer league. Can someone please explain the problem again? Oh right we won't rest until we find victims. I found some, those 25 yr old millionaire professional soccer players being pampered flying around the world representing their country as a side hustle. Life is soo fking tough Edited July 12, 2022 by SpursFlu gigi riva, johnyb, scooterlawrence5 and 6 others 6 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheeta Posted July 13, 2022 Share Posted July 13, 2022 7 hours ago, jhoops__ said: Two things here: 1) The players should unionize immediately. 2). Full federal gov inquiry into the CSA Operations. Have to get to the bottom of this or we’ll never recover and properly move forward. Put part #2 off until the New Year, then have a go. The federal government has every right to ensure good governance practices by the CSA. Government dollars and the tax benefit status the CSA enjoys burdens the feds with that responsibility. ted 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PegCityCam Posted July 13, 2022 Share Posted July 13, 2022 Johnston, Johnston he's our man... An Observer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PegCityCam Posted July 13, 2022 Share Posted July 13, 2022 Getting spicier... narduch 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
narduch Posted July 13, 2022 Share Posted July 13, 2022 I'm going to predict this is going to get worse before it gets better. The Cochrane move is basically a fuck you to the players Aroundtheworld and PegCityCam 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpursFlu Posted July 13, 2022 Share Posted July 13, 2022 The players are being used Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RS Posted July 13, 2022 Share Posted July 13, 2022 31 minutes ago, PegCityCam said: Johnston, Johnston he's our man... The first part of that interview PegCityCam 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gian-Luca Posted July 13, 2022 Share Posted July 13, 2022 58 minutes ago, PegCityCam said: Getting spicier... From the CSA's statement yesterday: "It is important to clarify that the CSB agreement and the negotiation of FIFA World Cup prize money are independent and have no bearing on each other." From the Sportsnet article dated today: "The players have asked for a payment equivalent to 40 per cent of the $10 million payout earned by qualifying for the World Cup, after tax, but Canada Soccer says that a contract signed in 2019 with CSB makes that unable to happen." All you can do is laugh at this point (or cry I suppose, but laughing is healthier....) PegCityCam and narduch 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpursFlu Posted July 13, 2022 Share Posted July 13, 2022 (edited) Is TSN mad they don't get Canadian Soccer for free anymore? Corporate puppet masters strike and they found a new batch of stooges. How much money we talking about here? Hahaha who knows but we're all mad aren't we Edited July 13, 2022 by SpursFlu Red and White 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SthMelbRed Posted July 13, 2022 Share Posted July 13, 2022 8 minutes ago, Gian-Luca said: From the CSA's statement yesterday: "It is important to clarify that the CSB agreement and the negotiation of FIFA World Cup prize money are independent and have no bearing on each other." From the Sportsnet article dated today: "The players have asked for a payment equivalent to 40 per cent of the $10 million payout earned by qualifying for the World Cup, after tax, but Canada Soccer says that a contract signed in 2019 with CSB makes that unable to happen." All you can do is laugh at this point (or cry I suppose, but laughing is healthier....) The conversation probably went like this.... Players: We want a $4m share, after tax for making the World Cup. CSA: That would mean giving you 80% of the $10m from FIFA. Players: Yeah. So...? CSA: We've made a commitment to give the women the same as what you get, so, we'd have to pay out $16m, but only get $10m. We can't do that. Players: Not our problem. We get what we want, or we strike. Find the extra money from sponsorships. CSA: We don't get any additional sponsorship money because we outsourced the rights to CSB for a fixed rate so we could get the CPL off the ground. Players: Fuck CSB! They stole our money! red card, Gian-Luca, Red and White and 3 others 5 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpursFlu Posted July 13, 2022 Share Posted July 13, 2022 1 minute ago, SthMelbRed said: The conversation probably went like this.... Players: We want a $4m share, after tax for making the World Cup. CSA: That would mean giving you 80% of the $10m from FIFA. Players: Yeah. So...? CSA: We've made a commitment to give the women the same as what you get, so, we'd have to pay out $16m, but only get $10m. We can't do that. Players: Not our problem. We get what we want, or we strike. Find the extra money from sponsorships. CSA: We don't get any additional sponsorship money because we outsourced the rights to CSB for a fixed rate so we could get the CPL off the ground. Players: Fuck CSB! They stole our money! You forgot Players: Some guy from TSN told us so Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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