The Importance of the Players vs CSA Pay Dispute

[RS]

21 minutes ago, Bison44 said:

Yipes anyone who thinks we are taking pot shots at Westhead for no reason, read his article and then read Davidson.  Davidson actually did his reporting, much more info to put things in context, ie the women have had name/image deal for 10 years, the men are just doing catch up now. And that previously the men went on an event by event basis.

There’s a big difference between this (legitimate criticism) vs. the dumb shit we’ve seen written in here by others.

[Unnamed Trialist]

1 hour ago, RS said:

The quote attached to Westhead's tweet is from a source (likely current or former CSA), it's not Westhead's own opinion. 

(I'm assuming that's what you're reacting to)

An unsourced source. It has zero journalistic validity. It's the equivalent of his opinion.

[Bison44]

Yep, there are the conspiracy dudes out there, like on every subject.  But Westhead's stuff comes off like hit pieces or click bait based on the latest controversy because he isnt well versed in soccer (and it shows) and worst of all for a reporter, doesnt do the leg work to actually find out what he is reporting on before he slaps some inflammatory anon quotes on a half baked article.  Not getting any response from anyone at CSA on this last story is just lazy...or intentionally biased.    

[RS]

21 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

An unsourced source. It has zero journalistic validity. It's the equivalent of his opinion.

It’s an unnamed source, not an unsourced one.

Westhead is experienced enough not to use any source that isn’t solid. Just because it’s unnamed, doesn’t mean the source isn’t legit.

I’m not sure why anyone would be surprised that someone close to the CSA would give such a scathing quote.

12 minutes ago, Bison44 said:

Yep, there are the conspiracy dudes out there, like on every subject.  But Westhead's stuff comes off like hit pieces or click bait based on the latest controversy because he isnt well versed in soccer (and it shows) and worst of all for a reporter, doesnt do the leg work to actually find out what he is reporting on before he slaps some inflammatory anon quotes on a half baked article.  Not getting any response from anyone at CSA on this last story is just lazy...or intentionally biased.    

He has a quote from CSA PR guy Paulo Senra in that latest story. Senra’s been around the block in sports PR and was likely hired (at least in part) to address this situation, and he likely has been assigned to be the guy to speak to Westhead directly.

That Davidson got Cochrane to talk on the record speaks to Neil’s long-standing reputation and his relationships with various higher-ups in Canadian soccer.

[DoyleG]

19 minutes ago, Bison44 said:

Yep, there are the conspiracy dudes out there, like on every subject.  But Westhead's stuff comes off like hit pieces or click bait based on the latest controversy because he isnt well versed in soccer (and it shows) and worst of all for a reporter, doesnt do the leg work to actually find out what he is reporting on before he slaps some inflammatory anon quotes on a half baked article.  Not getting any response from anyone at CSA on this last story is just lazy...or intentionally biased.    

More in the lazy.

He did the same thing during the "controversy" over turf at the WWC. Nothing but parlaying the points given to him by the leaders and displaying it as fact. Not actual work in checking the background himself.

[Unnamed Trialist]

1 hour ago, RS said:

It’s an unnamed source, not an unsourced one.

Westhead is experienced enough not to use any source that isn’t solid. Just because it’s unnamed, doesn’t mean the source isn’t legit.

I’m not sure why anyone would be surprised that someone close to the CSA would give such a scathing quote.

He has a quote from CSA PR guy Paulo Senra in that latest story. Senra’s been around the block in sports PR and was likely hired (at least in part) to address this situation, and he likely has been assigned to be the guy to speak to Westhead directly.

That Davidson got Cochrane to talk on the record speaks to Neil’s long-standing reputation and his relationships with various higher-ups in Canadian soccer.

Well I could have a source, probably just as good as his too. I won't name it, so it is worth nothing. Nothing, because it's anonymity puts a check on all the information I could publish from it. No readership could find it reliable, and rightly so. A good editor would say: sorry, can't publish that. 

But it's TSN and their policy is to grab on the Westhead udders and squeeze like hell.

Then, folks want Westhead to ask the CSA what they think of what an unnamed source says. Since he knows they can't seriously respond to such things, he can then write his story without worrying about a response. Cop out journalism.

And anyways, since my source would tell me the same thing as another hundred similar sources about aspects of the player-CSA deal, all equally legitimate, if I wanted to use that information in the public sphere I'd go talk to any of them. Until I could find one willing to be named. 

You'd be suprised by how many here have sources. Mine tell me some fairly shocking things sometimes, juicier than the dribble Westhead puts out.

[Kent]

On 10/21/2022 at 5:16 PM, king1010 said:

I thought the players flew business class?

I am WAAAAY behind on this thread so probably someone else has already addressed this question. The article included this quote "Maybe a good leader sits in economy class the same as some of our national team players and coaches have had to in recent years." Notice it says "some" in there. It's also not clear what "recent years" means. Maybe that means someone, let's say Tesho, was a late call up to a camp 2 years ago and had to take an economy flight from Orlando to Toronto. It's tough to draw any conclusions from that statement.

In the latest episode ("Death Ground") of the We Can documentary that they showed a player getting a massage on a plane. I've never seen a massage table on an economy flight.

 

[Watchmen]

1 hour ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

Well I could have a source, probably just as good as his too. I won't name it, so it is worth nothing. Nothing, because it's anonymity puts a check on all the information I could publish from it. No readership could find it reliable, and rightly so. A good editor would say: sorry, can't publish that. 

No, a good editor would say "has this source been reliable in the past and/or can you verify it with another source".  Sources remain anonymous constantly, in all sports and walks of life.

The CSA probably is annoyed at Westhead and they are under no obligation to respond to him.  It's equally valid for them to put their version of the story out through another source (in this case Davidson).  Again, this happens in all sports.

1 hour ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

You'd be suprised by how many here have sources. Mine tell me some fairly shocking things sometimes, juicier than the dribble Westhead puts out.

I would guess that Westhead has also heard much, much more shocking things than he has put out as well and that he was either unable to verify to a reliable degree or were even less germane to the discussion.

[SpursFlu]

Why are we even subjected to this nonsense? I turn on TSN to get an update on our national team going to the World Cup and they give some guy a platform to spread negative divisive dribble. Nobody challenges him or pushes back on what amounts to some random guy presenting generic incomplete insinuations that nobody's looking for and we're supposed to take it as the gospel. Its like we now interupt your program for this minute of complete propaganda. Now you can go back enjoying your  passtime. This is supposed to be a good thing, a fun thing, something that's supposed to bring us all together. Not some fake narrative about a bunch of evil business men taking advantage of a group of poor defensless athletes. Im sick of this crap in our media. So much unnecessary negativity being plugged in to every aspect of our society. Just leave us alone and stop ruining everything 

Edited October 26, 2022 by SpursFlu

[SthMelbRed]

1 hour ago, Kent said:

I am WAAAAY behind on this thread so probably someone else has already addressed this question. The article included this quote "Maybe a good leader sits in economy class the same as some of our national team players and coaches have had to in recent years." Notice it says "some" in there. It's also not clear what "recent years" means. Maybe that means someone, let's say Tesho, was a late call up to a camp 2 years ago and had to take an economy flight from Orlando to Toronto. It's tough to draw any conclusions from that statement.

In the latest episode ("Death Ground") of the We Can documentary that they showed a player getting a massage on a plane. I've never seen a massage table on an economy flight.

 

That was a charter flight that brought the team back from Haiti to Chicago for the second leg of the playoff.

[jonovision]

23 minutes ago, SpursFlu said:

Why are we even subjected to this nonsense? I turn on TSN to get an update on our national team going to the World Cup and they give some guy a platform to spread negative divisive dribble.

1 hour ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

Mine tell me some fairly shocking things sometimes, juicier than the dribble Westhead puts out.

Not close to the most annoying thing in this thread, but it's drivel, not dribble.

[El Hombre]

9 hours ago, Kent said:

I am WAAAAY behind on this thread so probably someone else has already addressed this question. The article included this quote "Maybe a good leader sits in economy class the same as some of our national team players and coaches have had to in recent years." Notice it says "some" in there. It's also not clear what "recent years" means. Maybe that means someone, let's say Tesho, was a late call up to a camp 2 years ago and had to take an economy flight from Orlando to Toronto. It's tough to draw any conclusions from that statement.

In the latest episode ("Death Ground") of the We Can documentary that they showed a player getting a massage on a plane. I've never seen a massage table on an economy flight.

While I agree this is a minor point and probably only brought up in the article to help sensationalize the issues, there could be valid criticism around this point when it comes from all the non-international match travel the CSA executive could do on a regular basis.  I assume (but could very well be wrong) Bontis and co. travel constantly around the country for administrative duties.  Regular first-class tickets for consistent Toronto-Calgary or Toronto-Vancouver flights would add significantly to any organization's budget.

Sure, there's a double-standard with players traveling for a match, but I can see there being a ton of flights required for the CSA brass just for administrative duties.  As someone who travels quite a bit for work, it seems a little excessive.  I don't know of any commercial organization that has this low of a threshold for first-class travel.

[Unnamed Trialist]

9 hours ago, jonovision said:

Not close to the most annoying thing in this thread, but it's drivel, not dribble.

Pisses me off that I gave Westhead the merits of a "dribble", when here we are saying he has no clue of the game.

[Kent]

On 10/22/2022 at 3:13 PM, Free kick said:

You confused!!...Of course they are different companies!  read again. I dont know what this has to do with what i said.  

edit.:  OK  i see what you mean now.   Its media pro who flipped those rights.   But again,  the main point stands.   CSA received 3 Mill for something that may have conservatively been worth 7-15 Million in 2020 based on projections from the articles from forbes.    

edit#2.:  since mediapro and CSB are both private companies we dont know the details of what each got in that deal with Rogers.

 

Disclaimer again, I am still way behind on this thread so apologies if this is piling on but I haven't seen anyone mention it yet (on page 50).

You keep saying 2020. In 2020 the CMNT played 3 closed door (I think they were closed door) friendlies. 2 against Bermuda and 1 against Iceland, in a non-FIFA window. Those games didn't include Alphonso Davies or Jonathan David. They included names like Tosaint Ricketts, Tristan Borges, Amer Didic, Jayden Nelson, and Zorhan Bassong.

The first half of 2021 featured games against Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Aruba, and Suriname.

The summer of 2021 was the Gold Cup, which I believe is not part of the CSB deal since it is a CONCACAF property, so TSN and Sportsnet would have been welcome to bid on it, but OneSoccer apparently won out on that.

Then in September of 2021 (just over a year ago) is when the octagonal started. I believe only the home games were part of the CSB deal with OneSoccer, so again OneSoccer (or possibly OneSoccer + Sportsnet) were able to negotiate rights for the away games with the host team's FAs.

So really we are talking about 7 CMNT games in all of 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 of potential value to TSN/Sportsnet that the CSB got from the CSA in their deal. I guess there is also the Nations League games, perhaps you think those few games were worth millions of dollars.

[zeelaw]

Kinda annoyed to see our success has brought out so many mainstream Canadian Sports talking heads and their boring, typical and expected opinions, when they couldn't be bothered to talk about the CSA in any context over the last two decades.

And the twitter replies from the numpty echo chamber.

 

Edited October 26, 2022 by zeelaw

[Kent]

On 10/23/2022 at 1:03 PM, ensco said:

The fact that soccer executives are buying themselves gear but denying it to the players is news. 

Except the suits for the executives are for the World Cup, and the players were asked to return training gear for non-World Cup. The executives will keep their World Cup suits, and I'm guessing the players will keep their World Cup jerseys.

The suits/training gear issue brought up in the article seems bad, but if you think about it for a minute or two it's easy to see it's not like for like.

[Obinna]

1 minute ago, Kent said:

Except the suits for the executives are for the World Cup, and the players were asked to return training gear for non-World Cup. The executives will keep their World Cup suits, and I'm guessing the players will keep their World Cup jerseys.

The suits/training gear issue brought up in the article seems bad, but if you think about it for a minute or two it's easy to see it's not like for like.

Bingo.

[Ottawafan]

2 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

Pisses me off that I gave Westhead the merits of a "dribble", when here we are saying he has no clue of the game.

He doesn't have to have a clue as you say to report on the subject matter.  We all know CSA needs to get their house in order; Westhead isn't pointing out anything we don't already know.  Stories like this are easy to write.

[Obinna]

11 hours ago, Watchmen said:

No, a good editor would say "has this source been reliable in the past and/or can you verify it with another source".  Sources remain anonymous constantly, in all sports and walks of life.

Was this the case for the Westhead article? If we cannot say yes, then @Unnamed Trialist's point stands: An unnamed source cannot be assumed to be reliable.

[Ottawafan]

2 minutes ago, Obinna said:

Was this the case for the Westhead article? If we cannot say yes, then @Unnamed Trialist's point stands: An unnamed source cannot be assumed to be reliable.

This isn't some random internet blogger throwing something against the wall.  Westhead is an established reporter who works for an entity that will due some due diligence before printing.  If you don't like the message that is your business, take it for what it's worth then.  Continually trying to poke holes in it the story doesn't diminish the facts.

[SpursFlu]

Like most everyone here we have friends who are casual fans. I'm in other chat groups related to other sports or other topics. They only mention of the CMNT is this crap. To the unenlightened they take this crap at face value. Of course I can take a few minutes to completely dismantle the narrative because I'm informed but I can't be everywhere. TSN knows that 99% of the public don't really know the full picture. People don't know who Junior Hoilett and Liam Millar are but they "know" the CSA are trying to steal money from Alphonso Davies and rip off the players. They don't understand what's really going on here with TSN, MLSE, CPL, Mediapro or that these are just regular natural negotiations that are bound to occur. I was talking to a group of friends last night and when I told them many national teams including England donate their pay to charity.. it was like, no way in hell! Wait a few minutes for Google to kick in and then radio silence. TSN know what they're doing here. If you really want to go on about this topic  which really doesn't need so much airtime, why not have someone to push back or to present another perspective? Of course they won't, because they have an agenda

Edited October 26, 2022 by SpursFlu

[Obinna]

6 minutes ago, Ottawafan said:

This isn't some random internet blogger throwing something against the wall.  Westhead is an established reporter who works for an entity that will due some due diligence before printing.  If you don't like the message that is your business, take it for what it's worth then.  Continually trying to poke holes in it the story doesn't diminish the facts.

So because it is TSN, and because Westhead is an established reporter, we should assume that unnamed sources are creditable? If that's the case, then TSN and Westhead need not bother naming sources in the future, since they have already built enough a strong reputation and thus earned the trust of their readership.

To be clear, I am not assuming his unnamed source is fake, but I am not assuming it is reliable just because it is Westhead/TSN. There is a difference, you know. It's just about maintaining a healthy dose of skepticism, which I believe everyone should do no matter the outlet.

At the same time - to each their own. If you want to give Westhead and TSN the benefit of the doubt here, you're welcomed to do so.

[Ottawafan]

5 minutes ago, Obinna said:

So because it is TSN, and because Westhead is an established reporter, we should assume that unnamed sources are creditable?

Yes.

[RS]

7 minutes ago, Obinna said:

So because it is TSN, and because Westhead is an established reporter, we should assume that unnamed sources are creditable? If that's the case, then TSN and Westhead need not bother naming sources in the future, since they have already built enough a strong reputation and thus earned the trust of their readership.

[snip]

At the same time - to each their own. If you want to give Westhead and TSN the benefit of the doubt here, you're welcomed to do so.

No one is infallible, and mistakes will and do get made, but certain outlets/reporters have absolutely earned more leeway than others based on their previous work and reputation. That's how it works.

Quote

To be clear, I am not assuming his unnamed source is fake, but I am not assuming it is reliable just because it is Westhead/TSN. There is a difference, you know. It's just about maintaining a healthy dose of skepticism, which I believe everyone should do no matter the outlet.

A few people on here are well past the "healthy dose of skepticism" stage.

[Ottawafan]

17 minutes ago, SpursFlu said:

Like most everyone here we have friends who are casual fans. I'm in other chat groups related to other sports or other topics. They only mention of the CMNT is this crap. To the unenlightened they take this crap at face value. Of course I can take a few minutes to completely dismantle the narrative because I'm informed but I can't be everywhere. TSN knows that 99% of the public don't really know the full picture. People don't know who Junior Hoilett and Liam Millar are but they "know" the CSA are trying to steal money from Alphonso Davies and rip off the players. They don't understand what's really going on here with TSN, MLSE, CPL, Mediapro or that these are just regular natural negotiations that are bound to occur. I was talking to a group of friends last night and when I told them many national teams including England donate their pay to charity.. it was like, no way in hell! Wait a few minutes for Google to kick in and then radio silence. TSN know what they're doing here. If you really want to go on about this topic  which really doesn't need so much airtime, why not have someone to push back or to present another perspective? Of course they won't, because they have an agenda

Matthew Scianetti, Luke Wileman, Steve Caldwell and others have produced plenty of content over the last year or so covering the national team.  If TSN was in the business of denigrating their WC property and Canadian soccer, how does this fit into your conspiracy of the TSN "agenda"?