Canadian Soccer Business (CSB)

[Ansem]

15 minutes ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

...don't hold your breath on that last bit, if how the league has approached this issue up to now is anything to go by.

Does any of the other leagues have bilingual commissioner? You sure have a hard on on anything CPL. Let's be honest... like you actually care about French being a language talk by the commissioner 

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

Absolutely sickening that you posted that last bit. Who set you up as the arbiter of who does and doesn't care about Canadian soccer? Try comparing how the CSA and CPL deal with the bilingualism angle and you'll notice a difference.

[Ansem]

10 minutes ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

Absolutely sickening that you posted that last bit. Who set you up as the arbiter of who does and doesn't care about Canadian soccer? Try comparing how the CSA and CPL deal with the bilingualism angle and you'll notice a difference.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

^^^says all that needs to be said about this guy's maturity level.

Edited August 30, 2022 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[Ansem]

41 minutes ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

^^^says all that needs to be said about this guy's maturity level.

I doubt that you cared about the commissioner's (an American) ability to speak French, not that you care about Canadian football. Try being mature and not put words in my mouth. 

No one's happy with the state of French in the league at the moment but a club in Quebec will go a long way to change that status quo. I mean, we got over the Habs GM not speaking French because the club said that Kent Hughes was the best candidate to get the club out of mediocrity. His assistant speaks French so there you have it.

The guy just got hired, let's see if he hires a bilingual or not as his assistant which I think would be very important. Let the American settle in his job and see what he does...geez

You talk like CPL wakes up in the morning seeking to screw over French. Growth and fixing some of it's issues is top priority and this hire worked at SUM, so I get it as CEO of CSB.

Dude, you're not going to care more about French than I do.

[Unnamed Trialist]

Just took a look: the CSA, in over a hundred years' history, has never had a French speaking, culturally Quebecois president. Ever.

Of the current core staff, there are no French Canadians. It is not something casual, the CSA and Canadian soccer hierarchy has a radical bias that maybe you could justify in 1955, before great French players began to emerge globally (Just Fontaine) and the Anglo tradition was clearly superior, but not now.

Clanachan did not change that, neither does Noonan. It isn't something casual or just happenstance, it is longstanding and it has real effects on the Canadian soccer landscape. And the hiring processes just repeat it. 

For me, without a team in Québec, the league walks with a limp.

[Ivan]

43 minutes ago, Ansem said:

I doubt that you cared about the commissioner's (an American) ability to speak French, not that you care about Canadian football. Try being mature and not put words in my mouth. 

No one's happy with the state of French in the league at the moment but a club in Quebec will go a long way to change that status quo. I mean, we got over the Habs GM not speaking French because the club said that Kent Hughes was the best candidate to get the club out of mediocrity. His assistant speaks French so there you have it.

The guy just got hired, let's see if he hires a bilingual or not as his assistant which I think would be very important. Let the American settle in his job and see what he does...geez

You talk like CPL wakes up in the morning seeking to screw over French. Growth and fixing some of it's issues is top priority and this hire worked at SUM, so I get it as CEO of CSB.

Dude, you're not going to care more about French than I do.

Not that I really want to jump into this conversation, or care anything about the Habs, but I thought Kent Hughes grew up in Montreal and speaks fluent French??

[PastPros]

40 minutes ago, Ivan said:

Not that I really want to jump into this conversation, or care anything about the Habs, but I thought Kent Hughes grew up in Montreal and speaks fluent French??

He did and does fluently.

[Ansem]

46 minutes ago, Ivan said:

Not that I really want to jump into this conversation, or care anything about the Habs, but I thought Kent Hughes grew up in Montreal and speaks fluent French??

My bad - I thought he didn't,  there was a lot of drama initially following his appointment. I thought he couldn't speak it, reading this seems to have improved it quickly as initially he wasn't as comfortable

https://www.latribune.ca/2022/01/19/kent-hughes-why-not-f5a5b20c97f495ed655964494fe47e89

[Ivan]

3 hours ago, Ansem said:

My bad - I thought he didn't,  there was a lot of drama initially following his appointment. I thought he couldn't speak it, reading this seems to have improved it quickly as initially he wasn't as comfortable

https://www.latribune.ca/2022/01/19/kent-hughes-why-not-f5a5b20c97f495ed655964494fe47e89

You may be thinking of when they hired Jeff Gorton to run their hockey ops - a non-French speaker - who then hired the bilingual Hughes as GM, the defacto face of the franchise, at least in front of the cameras. 

[narduch]

The latest Footy Prime podcast episode has an interview of Noonan

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

6 hours ago, Ansem said:

I doubt that you cared about the commissioner's (an American) ability to speak French, ...

^^^worth noting that what I actually pointed out was that saying a token bonjour like that was pathetic. It's not difficult to string a simple sentence together in another language and not treat it as a joke but a lot of people in North America just don't want to ever even try to break out of the shell of being a monoglot English speaker. It's not difficult to find examples that point to a corporate culture of not making enough of an effort:

and a fan messageboard is as good a place as any for people to highlight that and suggest they sort it out as I believe they eventually did with the above example.

[Ansem]

2 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

^^^worth noting that what I actually pointed out was that saying a token bonjour like that was pathetic. It's not difficult to string a simple sentence together in another language and not treat it as a joke but a lot of people in North America just don't want to ever even try to break out of the shell of being a monoglot English speaker. It's not difficult to find examples that point to a corporate culture of not making enough of an effort:

Now do Bettman, Garber, CFL guy, NBA guy, MLB guy - GO

What was that?

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

^^^bizarre comment from a guy who harps on about people going off-topic in certain threads given this is a soccer board. Why bring the NHL, NBA and MLB into it?

The only sensible analogy is actually with the CFL given French is not an official language in the United States and MLS is under USSF rather than CSA sanctioning. When you choose to make use of another country's league system whether that be in soccer, hockey (or have long ago sold out what was originally a Canadian league to the Yankee dollar in this case), basketball or baseball you have to go with the flow to a certain extent.

I'd find it grating to listen to if whoever is the CFL's commissioner did something like Mark Noonan did but I probably wouldn't even be aware because I pay little to no attention to that league. If I was a CFL fan in the same way I am a fan of Canadian soccer I'd suggest they do a better job because it's important for something that is truly Canadian to deal with both solitudes equally unless people actually do want it to ultimately be a case of enfin oui René. This whole tangent to the thread is idiotic in the extreme. 

Edited August 31, 2022 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[MtlMario]

On 8/30/2022 at 7:08 AM, Unnamed Trialist said:

Just took a look: the CSA, in over a hundred years' history, has never had a French speaking, culturally Quebecois president. Ever.

 

There was DR. Dominic Mastracci (do not remember spelling) But he was from Quebec and spoke better French than English if I my memory is correct.

[MtlMario]

This reminds me of a survey done many years ago in a French language paper here in Mtl. The question was "do you prefer a French speaking coach for the Canadiens or a coach that will win a Stanley cup? Believe it or not option one won.

[red card]

Kloke's Voyageurs book has the CSB origin story.

Back in 2014, Canada's men ranking dropped to a new low of 122. The criticism from within and outside of the CSA was that the men's team lacked investment, both financially and culturally. It was part of the reason why the 2009 book Soccernomics named Canada as the most underachieving country in football.

Still, Montagliani recognized soccer was no a longer fringe sport. He wanted better football infrastructure and shift CSA's focus away from grassroots soccer and provincial association agendas to the national teams. CSA, especially at the board level, didn't understand football beyond as a participation sport. Montagliani was the one who allocated more tickets to the Voyageurs and stopped helping visiting teams book hotels, transportation & security.

He wanted less reliance on registration fees and volunteer directors making crucial decisions about national teams. He wanted CSA's attitude to be more commercial and corporate oriented. The men's team needed to qualify for the entire Canadian football echo system to benefit financially.

Basically, he wanted a league and he wanted more support for the national teams. To avoid the pitfalls of the CSL, the league needed to start on a far more financially stable footing.

That was part of the message Montagliani delivered to Scott Mitchell, CEO of the Ti-Cats, during a lunch as a Vancouver sushi restaurant in 2014.

Montagliani all but dared Mitchell to get on board with a nascent Cdn league he was dreaming up. Mitchell remembered a tenacious Montagliani saying to him “Anybody can tell me why this won’t work. Why don’t you tell me why it should work?”. 

What Montagliani did differently from some of his predecessors was make people like Micthell understand that with an inventive business model, there could be financial incentives for early backers. 

“That,” Mitchell reflected of the lunch with Montagliani, “was the turning point”.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

Now in 2022 the Men's team has qualified with CanPL having almost no role in making it happen and the players are not happy about an "inventive business model" that is perceived to siphon money away from them for their achievements to the CSB investors who are now receiving the "financial incentives for being early backers". Think we all know how this happened. What's more important at this point maybe is how harmony is restored in Canadian professional level soccer.

Edited October 23, 2022 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[Ivan]

18 minutes ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

Now in 2022 the Men's team has qualified with CanPL having almost no role in making it happen and the players are not happy about an "inventive business model" that is perceived to siphon money away from them for their achievements to the CSB investors who are now receiving the "financial incentives for being early backers". Think we all know how this happened. What's more important at this point maybe is how harmony is restored in Canadian professional level soccer.

But this thinking is so wrong on many levels.

• We all agree that we needed a Canadian Professional league that was fundamental for the growth of the game in this country.  A group of investors was given the financial incentive to start the league, while providing the CSA with a guaranteed yearly stipend that they deemed more than satisfactory to run their operation.
• There is no "siphoning" of money away from the players.  This money was never there to begin with.
• The players have the right to compensation for the use of their likeness, name an achievements.  The money that goes to the CSB, CPL or CSA and player bonuses will need to be separate from that.   

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

7 minutes ago, Ivan said:

But this thinking is so wrong on many levels.

• We all agree that we needed a Canadian Professional league that was fundamental for the growth of the game in this country....

Sure but that could have been done without Victor Montagliani signing away up to 20 years worth of CMNT and CWNT revenues if there had been no CSB as an "inventive business model" and the CSA had instead followed the recommendations of the Easton Report with something lower budget with a stronger U-23 focus. CanPL wasn't the only way to have a national pro league structure.

[Bison44]

Translation....we should have stayed and been happy with farm teams in USL or have a semi-pro regional bus league.  

[narduch]

11 minutes ago, Bison44 said:

Translation....we should have stayed and been happy with farm teams in USL or have a semi-pro regional bus league.  

The Bird Man just wants no competition for the 3 Canadian MLS clubs.

He's already been proven wrong but keeps harping on about it.

[Kent]

On 10/23/2022 at 1:01 PM, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

Now in 2022 the Men's team has qualified with CanPL having almost no role in making it happen

 

On 10/23/2022 at 1:37 PM, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

CSA had instead followed the recommendations of the Easton Report with something lower budget with a stronger U-23 focus

Do you believe if the lower budget bus league that isn't L1C was started in place of the CPL in 2019 that it would have had a role in getting Canada to the 2022 World Cup? Or would it also be a waste of money and possibly time? Or is the thinking that it also would have contributed nothing but it would have cost less, so it would be a waste of less money?

Give CPL some time. If it thrives it will play a role in the future of the CMNT, just like L1O with some time has played a role in the current CMNT.

[Shway]

5 minutes ago, Kent said:

 

Do you believe if the lower budget bus league that isn't L1C was started in place of the CPL in 2019 that it would have had a role in getting Canada to the 2022 World Cup? Or would it also be a waste of money and possibly time? Or is the thinking that it also would have contributed nothing but it would have cost less, so it would be a waste of less money?

Give CPL some time. If it thrives it will play a role in the future of the CMNT, just like L1O with some time has played a role in the current CMNT.

Why entertain an egregious take? It actually makes a fool out of you.

The proof is in the pudding even with the league still in its infancy.

The real siphoning is in the fact that the main Canadian markets are in a league in which the CSA has no say over - Let’s start there. 

[Bison44]

Ohhhh, I sooooooo want Waterman at the WC if only to shut bird droppings up.  FIrst it was after one season, they said no one had made it to a higher leagues, then players went MLS, and it changed to no one made it to CMNT, now its morphed into no one helped the team get to WC.  How many of the 26 will have spent time in L10??    

These leagues are slowly finding their footing in the pyramid (bus league L1O/PLSQ to canada wide CPL to north american MLS) and players and being discovered/developed and moved along like a proper football nation.