Canadian Soccer Business (CSB)

[Free kick]

3 minutes ago, MtlMario said:

??? CFL.

PS. I presume you mean CPL?

Its kind of one and that same isn't it?

[MtlMario]

3 minutes ago, Free kick said:

Its kind of one and that same isn't it?

Besides Hamilton and Winnipeg which CFL owners are involved?

[Watchmen]

3 minutes ago, ted said:

When the deal was signed it was a good deal and provided steady revenue for the CSA while creating a domestic league.

Actually, the article says the CSA board knew it was a bad deal at the start which is why they wanted more details on it. That's a key part of the "missing" approval documents.

[Gian-Luca]

10 minutes ago, Watchmen said:

I read that as they're waiting to get legal representation in place.

Yeah I thought of that as well but I also recalled reading that the players got legal representation after the Panama debacle, so perhaps it is more likely that their lawyer is telling them "Don't talk to Westhead" in case it might prejudice their own case against them in the negotiations.

[Meepmeep]

8 minutes ago, Watchmen said:

Actually, the article says the CSA board knew it was a bad deal at the start which is why they wanted more details on it. That's a key part of the "missing" approval documents.

This is the part I’m very happy to see being discussed. 
The timing of the deal-AFTER we had been awarded the World Cup and after we knew we had a bumper crop of young talent in the pipeline- combined with rushing it over the line without board approval.  

It’s an awful deal for Canada soccer.   
The next questions should be, who is it a good deal for and how did those stakeholders influence the deal. 

[El Diego]

42 minutes ago, Gian-Luca said:

We also learned that the players are now, for whatever reason, refusing to speak to Westhead, which is interesting in light of them using him to air their grievances before. I wonder if that's related to Westhead speaking to a player agent who criticizes the players for their alleged naivety.

 

 

It's because their (new) lawyer wisely told them to shut up

The allegations in that article are absolutely damning. Why didn't the board sound the alarm on this deal to the media when the alleged run around happened?

[Free kick]

27 minutes ago, Meepmeep said:

This is the part I’m very happy to see being discussed. 
The timing of the deal-AFTER we had been awarded the World Cup and after we knew we had a bumper crop of young talent in the pipeline- combined with rushing it over the line without board approval.  

It’s an awful deal for Canada soccer.   
The next questions should be, who is it a good deal for and how did those stakeholders influence the deal. 

Exactly,  This is the part that bugs me and that throw holes into that BS theory that:  At the time it was signed, there was no way to know that the MNT would be this good this fast.   Well, as an observer of the program for far too long, I have not been really been wrong (nor shy to say so here) in my pre-WCQ realistic chances.   Even though I attended most of games that i can, and was hopeful,  for 2014 and 2018, it wasnt the same for 2022 as far as optimism.  Especially  when i found out about the covid impacted WCQ format change.   

Edited July 12, 2022 by Free kick

[TOcanadafan]

39 minutes ago, ted said:

That's a bizarre take on the article and the role of CSB, and more importantly a complete misrepresentation of the ownership of CSB and how we got here.

The three goals outlined by the CSA at the time were good and rational and still make sense. When the deal was signed it was a good deal and provided steady revenue for the CSA while creating a domestic league.

 

This quote from the TSN article is the counter to your take:

“In the summer of 2018, Canada Soccer knew it would host the 2026 World Cup and knew there would be so many Canadian and international companies wanting to do huge sponsorship deals with the federation. And we also knew by then that we had a pipeline of great young talent coming up”.  

The deal just reeks of corrupt government / public bodies selling off assets to private companies at fractions of what they are worth.  

[SpecialK]

For all of you who fought hard to support the CSB, bashed me and bla bla you can all go suck a egg ! Thank you Rick for amazing reporting! If people don’t lose their heads over this… there are even bigger problems. 

 

Edited July 12, 2022 by SpecialK

[TOcanadafan]

25 minutes ago, Meepmeep said:

It’s an awful deal for Canada soccer.  who is it a good deal for and how did those stakeholders influence the deal. 

Amazing that Bontis could help orchestrate all of this while on vacation in Aruba.  

[SpecialK]

Oh I am loving this !! for Years our soccer media in Canada has kissed the CSA ass and finally the real sports media comes in and kicks the CSA corrupt ass! I took a look quickly on Twitter to see if our Canadian Soccer media is covering the story nope ( well I couldn’t find). I hope Rick and mainstream sports media puts the boots too all of them! To the CSA Ass kissers where were you ? Why didn’t you find this stuff out? 

[Aird25]

1 minute ago, SpecialK said:

Oh I am loving this !! for Years our soccer media in Canada has kissed the CSA ass and finally the real sports media comes in and kicks the CSA corrupt ass! I took a look quickly on Twitter to see if our Canadian Soccer media is covering the story nope ( well I couldn’t find). I hope Rick and mainstream sports media puts the boots too all of them! To the CSA Ass kissers where were you ? Why didn’t you find this stuff out? 

We've had soccer media in Canada for years?

[Gian-Luca]

46 minutes ago, El Diego said:

It's because their (new) lawyer wisely told them to shut up

The allegations in that article are absolutely damning. Why didn't the board sound the alarm on this deal to the media when the alleged run around happened?

Good question, which suggests that there is more to all this than we are being led to believe.

At the end of the day, the CSB deal had been known about for four years, but only has been complained about 4 years after the fact.

 

Edited July 12, 2022 by Gian-Luca

[Dominic94]

1 hour ago, Watchmen said:

I disagree. I think we learned quite a bit here. 

- That the CSA board never agreed to the deal with the CSB, and the meeting notes "disappeared", with Bontis just declaring that they agreed

- We got some numbers: CSB pays $3m a year to the CSA (which we knew), rising to $3.5m by 2027. The CSB has the right to extend the deal for an additional 10 years at only $4m. Meanwhile, the new CIBC deal pays $5m per year and it all goes to CSB.

- CSB did not pay the CSA the full amount due during the shut down years of covid and their may be a chance to break the deal (much like Ligue 1 did in France)

- Bontis and Cochrane come off as even more corrupt than we expected.

These can’t be under stated, the CSB on the CIBC deal alone is laughing….. I know the deal say at least 3-4 million a year…. But like what’s the maximum ? How can it be more ? What are the criteria for this ?

I think the fact that the deal itself wasn’t ratified by all board members is something that can be used to terminate the deal.

CSB are laughing…. And now we have answers as to why we have no youth camps etc. 
 

Also let’s not forget that Nike and others have signed new deals with the CSA that goes straight to the CSB… they literally signed away everything that would help us grow.

[Aird25]

Deleted

Edited July 12, 2022 by Aird25

[Ivan]

26 minutes ago, SpecialK said:

For all of you who fought hard to support the CSB, bashed me and bla bla you can all go suck a egg ! Thank you Rick for amazing reporting! If people don’t lose their heads over this… there are even bigger problems. 

 

So why bash the CSB?  Sounds like a great piece of business by them.  If they are going to go out and find a bunch of sponsors while the CSA sits back and collects 3-4 million a year more power to them.  And, most importantly, it funds our  domestic league that we have all been craving since the inception of this board.

Yes, the CSA sounds like the shitshow we all knew it was, but let's not blame the CSB.

[dyslexic nam]

On 6/11/2022 at 10:35 AM, Watchmen said:

I was busy with work for 3 days and didn't have time to check the forum).

Pfft. 

[SpursFlu]

Circular Firing Squad 

We won't be happy until we're unhappy 

[Meepmeep]

17 minutes ago, Aird25 said:

We've had soccer media in Canada for years?

Yeah.  Nightly board meetings at The Bow and Arrow (Yonge and Davisville) in the 90s and early 2000s. 

[Watchmen]

14 minutes ago, Ivan said:

So why bash the CSB?  Sounds like a great piece of business by them.  If they are going to go out and find a bunch of sponsors while the CSA sits back and collects 3-4 million a year more power to them.  And, most importantly, it funds our  domestic league that we have all been craving since the inception of this board.

Yes, the CSA sounds like the shitshow we all knew it was, but let's not blame the CSB.

This gets complicated, of course. But the way I'm reading it: CPL owners (who are also CSB owners, by default) are potentially raking in money based on the national team performance (of which they had nothing to do with) while also crying poverty to the CPL players because the CPL doesn't make much (which is true). This is the same issue in MLS. The sources of income for ownership are separated in a manner that allows them to both make money and cry poverty. And the deal becomes an issue for both the CSA, the national team players, and the CPL players union.

Edit: This is why I have been saying for a while that the CSB should have their feet held to the fire over helping to organize friendlies for the national teams. Because they're the ones benefitting the most from the improved performance of the national teams. 

Edited July 12, 2022 by Watchmen

[ted]

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.
 

[Aird25]

3 minutes ago, Watchmen said:

This gets complicated, of course. But the way I'm reading it: CPL owners (who are also CSB owners, by default) are potentially raking in money based on the national team performance (of which they had nothing to do with) while also crying poverty to the CPL players because the CPL doesn't make much (which is true). This is the same issue in MLS. The sources of income for ownership are separated in a manner that allows them to both make money and cry poverty. And the deal becomes an issue for both the CSA, the national team players, and the CPL players union.

CSB made an investment in the national team that seems to be paying off. They also made an investment in the professional game in this country that doesn't seem to be paying off. I have no clue how the money balances for the two investments but I do think we're in a better position overall than we ever have been since I've been following the sport in Canada.

One of the reasons that the investment in the professional game is failing is in part due to traditional media like TSN refusing to cooperate, or outright hindering it's success. TSN may now have a vested interest in the national team deal collapsing so that they can capitalize on recent success. They publish a one sided article on the CSB deal.

[Ivan]

11 minutes ago, Watchmen said:

This gets complicated, of course. But the way I'm reading it: CPL owners (who are also CSB owners, by default) are potentially raking in money based on the national team performance (of which they had nothing to do with) while also crying poverty to the CPL players because the CPL doesn't make much (which is true). This is the same issue in MLS. The sources of income for ownership are separated in a manner that allows them to both make money and cry poverty. And the deal becomes an issue for both the CSA, the national team players, and the CPL players union.

Edit: This is why I have been saying for a while that the CSB should have their feet held to the fire over helping to organize friendlies for the national teams. Because they're the ones benefitting the most from the improved performance of the national teams. 

But the sensationalized article by Westhead still doesn't provide all the details of the agreement.  For example, who gets the qualification bonus money? Does it go straight to the CSA or is it funnelled through to the CSB?  It is true that the CSB, and inherently the CPL, do benefit from the success of the NTs, but seemingly just in the form of easier to acquire sponsorship money.  Again, speculation on my part as I don't know the specifics of the deal. 

[TOcanadafan]

27 minutes ago, Dominic94 said:

I think the fact that the deal itself wasn’t ratified by all board members is something that can be used to terminate the deal.

I would think this could also allow for termination:

”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.”

At present, we know this deal is crap for the CSA.  And there appears to be a couple of ways they could get out of it.  But the problem is Bontis and Cochrane, don’t want to get out of it as they (and I’m sure others on the Board who support Bontis) are in it for themselves - they are making CSB people a lot of $$$ and when Bontis decides to leave the CSA, he’ll be paid back handsomely.  It’s just the way politics works.

[Aird25]

1 minute ago, TOcanadafan said:

At present, we know this deal is crap for the CSA.

Do we?