Canadian Soccer Business (CSB)

[InglewoodJack]

So Canada is gonna terminate the CSB deal just like Ligue 1 did, right?
 

…right?

[narduch]

2 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

So Canada is gonna terminate the CSB deal just like Ligue 1 did, right?
 

…right?

I don't think you can without first removing Cochrane and Bontis. 

And then you run the risk of the CPL collapsing.

My prediction is the deal gets renegotiated.

[Colonel Green]

19 minutes ago, Gian-Luca said:

I am pointing out that he has his biases, just like everyone else, and I'm demonstrating why that is the case  with factual examples. 

The fact that TSN wasn’t interested in paying for the CPL is irrelevant in a discussion of Westhead’s investigation.

[RS]

18 minutes ago, narduch said:

My prediction is the deal gets renegotiated.

It has to at this point.

[Gian-Luca]

1 minute ago, Colonel Green said:

The fact that TSN wasn’t interested in paying for the CPL is irrelevant in a discussion of Westhead’s investigation.

True, but only I mentioned that as part of the reason why I personally find the johnny-come-lately aspect of all this to be annoying. I'm allowed to have opinions and admit what annoys me in relation to Canadian soccer, just like any other poster.

[SpecialK]

My question- why do people think the CPL will suddenly collapsed? 
the CPL owners have deep pockets 

Ottawa - Atlético Madrid

Forge - Bob Young 

Cavalry FC - spruce Meadows

Pacific FC- SixFive Sports & Entertainment ( they even want to own a 2nd team ) 

Valour - Winnipeg football community

halifax - they sell out almost every game. 

Edited July 13, 2022 by SpecialK

[El Hombre]

56 minutes ago, Gian-Luca said:

It's not a ridiculous point at all. The hiring of Herdman for the men vs. the hiring of Priestman for the women was directly compared by a former board member in the article - "When John Herdman was hired to coach the men’s team, the board discussed and debated before approving that hire. That didn’t happen with the women’s team coach" - despite there being a fundamentally crucial difference in the situations, a context which was suspiciously missing from the article, presumably for one of two possible reasons that I have already articulated. Of course, someone just reading that article less familiar with Canadian soccer history will be unaware of this.

The CSA were hammered by what little soccer media there was at the time over the lack of transparency, with even the likes of Kristian Jack saying it was impossible to get any information as to what the reasons were for Zambrano's dismissal When NHL coaches are fired, it's normally because the team has a shit record so the need for transparency isn't there - even if you can equate a professional sports team with that of a national sporting association (which I'm not sure that it makes sense to do so).

And while I take SF's point that Westhead in this particular instance is writing about a lack of transparency within the CSA's internal leadership, the missing context still is fundamental to the comparison in this regard. The board member is saying there is an expectation within the CSA that the board would be part of the decision making process for the hiring of a national team coach, but she is basing this on the Herdman hiring which wouldn't have been a normal hiring decision or process by any stretch of the imagination. It involved a firing and swapping the women's team coach over to the men's (unprecedented in soccer, if not any sport) which also brought with it another extra dimension to it, which is the loss of the coach to that programme. So its not hard to see why an unusual situation brought far more discussion to it that it normally would or might normally be required.

But best not to mention the vital facts in an article, because that might come across as a fair, unbiased and objective analysis, and who wants that?

I don't understand this criticism.

If I understand correctly, you are saying that there is a similar lack of transparency in both the Priestman hire and the Herdman hire.  And your issue is that Westhead focuses on one but not the other.  Is that correct?

The way I read it is that Westhead was using the Priestman hire as an example of the lack of transparency within the CSA.  He does not see the same lack of transparency with the Herdman hire because hiring Herdman seemed pretty clear to all within the CSA and followed the usual general process.  It seems like you are looking for transparency from the point of view of someone outside the CSA where as Westhead is focusing on the fact that how the CSA operates isn't even transparent for those on the inside taking part in the process.  These are two completely separate issues. 

Of course, I don't really see much controversial about the Herdman hiring so maybe that is affecting how I read it.

[shorty]

Re the CSA apologia article and the good comments here about the imperfect parallels between the Preistman hiring and the Herdman hiring and how they were conducted behind closed doors:

I agree that the thrust of Westhead’s article is about internal transparency and not necessarily external transparency. (You’re never going to release the contents of in camera hiring processes in any sector) But I also find it interesting and ironic that Bontis and Cochrane feel that it’s helpful to their case (for transparency’s sake) to point out that the CSA Bylaws specify that they don’t have to consult the Board for hires. (Or at least that’s their interpretation) Might well be true but if anything that “rebuttal” confirms the dysfunction.
 

Either they have crappy Bylaws that centralize authority in one person within a secretive organization (which would need to change and aren’t going to garner sympathy with anyone by publicizing the fact… “we didn’t do anything wrong… see!?”; or they are playing fast and loose with interpretation of said Bylaws and are confirming the thrust of the article which is that even directors feel so confused by process and lack of normal standards (RFPs for a training centre) that some of them feel it is a reputational liability to be part of the Board. 
 

Wow. What a shitshow. 

I think it’s true that the men are being naive and need legal counsel. I agree that some kind of deal with the CSB was a necessary step and has resulted in the CPL, but that it was badly implemented (CSA were in a piss poor bargaining position, yes, but could have negotiated better “outs” and sharing agreements betting on future success)

But holy shirtballs do they come off as a toxic organization and the CSA rebuttal article just confirms for me what slimeball Bontis is. 
 

Yeesh. Not sure of the way forward here. Like someone said above, hopefully Bontis and Cochrane do the right thing and step down. Who steps in though and are they any better?

Edited July 13, 2022 by shorty

[narduch]

3 minutes ago, shorty said:

Re the CSA apologia article and the good comments here about the imperfect parallels between the Preistman hiring and the Herdman hiring and how they were conducted behind closed doors:

I agree that the thrust of Westhead’s article is about internal transparency and not necessarily external transparency. (You’re never going to release the contents of in camera hiring processes in any sector) But I also find it interesting that Bontis and Cochrane feel that it’s helpful to their case (for transparency’s sake) to point out that the CSA Bylaws specify that they don’t have to consult the Board for hires. (Or at least that’s their interpretation) Might well be true but if anything that “rebuttal” confirms the dysfunction.
 

Either they have crappy Bylaws that centralize authority in one person within a secretive organization (which would need to change and aren’t going to garner sympathy with anyone by publicizing the fact… “we didn’t do anything wrong… see!?”; or they are playing fast and loose with interpretation of said Bylaws and are confirming the thrust of the article which is that even directors feel so confused by process and lack of normal standards (RFPs for a training centre) that some of them feel it is a reputational liability to be part of the Board. 
 

Wow. What a shitshow. 

I think it’s true that the men are being naive and need legal counsel. I agree that some kind of deal with the CSB was a necessary step and has resulted in the CPL, but that it was badly implemented (CSA were in a piss poor bargaining position, yes, but could have negotiated better “outs” and sharing agreements betting on future success)

But holy shirtballs do they come off as a toxic organization and the CSA rebuttal article just confirms for me what slimeball Bontis is. 
 

Yeesh. Not sure of the way forward here. Like someone said above, hopefully Bontis and Cochrane do the right thing and step down. Who steps in though and are they any better?

We should brace ourselves for further pain as fans.

[Sal333]

1 hour ago, Gian-Luca said:

It's not a ridiculous point at all. The hiring of Herdman for the men vs. the hiring of Priestman for the women was directly compared by a former board member in the article - "When John Herdman was hired to coach the men’s team, the board discussed and debated before approving that hire. That didn’t happen with the women’s team coach" - despite there being a fundamentally crucial difference in the situations, a context which was suspiciously missing from the article, presumably for one of two possible reasons that I have already articulated. Of course, someone just reading that article less familiar with Canadian soccer history will be unaware of this.

 

I don't know what you think this proves but it goes completely against the point you want to make. The board reviewed the firing of Zambrano and the hiring of Herdman. They approved it. It went through the proper process. The CSA was under no obligation to tell us the reasons why. Very few teams declare the real reasons one coach is fired and another is hired. But that didn't happen with the women's team coach which was the point in the article.

[El Hombre]

10 minutes ago, shorty said:

Yeesh. Not sure of the way forward here. Like someone said above, hopefully Bontis and Cochrane do the right thing and step down. Who steps in though and are they any better?

I'm free.  I'll run everything through twitter polls.  No problem.

[SpursFlu]

In the moment I definitely choose the CPL over our national team. I'm really fine with sending a CPL All Canadian team if the players aren't willing to play under the current arrangement 

[phresh]

35 minutes ago, SpursFlu said:

In the moment I definitely choose the CPL over our national team. I'm really fine with sending a CPL All Canadian team if the players aren't willing to play under the current arrangement 

This isn’t an either or situation. The two can coexist without the CSA and the players getting cucked

Edited July 13, 2022 by phresh

[Gian-Luca]

3 hours ago, El Hombre said:

I don't understand this criticism.

If I understand correctly, you are saying that there is a similar lack of transparency in both the Priestman hire and the Herdman hire.  And your issue is that Westhead focuses on one but not the other.  Is that correct?

Not quite. I'm saying the hiring of Herdman for the men's team and the hiring of Priestman for the women's team are not at all comparable because of the vastly different circumstances, so it seems either naive or dishonest to compare the two as though the processes and thus the level of internal discussion and consultation would be the same or that Herdman hiring (which was unprecedented in all of sport) was a standard  process, which is how that board member makes it sound. The hiring of Priestman didn't involve (a) the firing of the incumbent coach (Heiner-Moller resigned due to the pandemic)' (b) moving a national team coach from one team to another; (c) the consideration of the impact that moving the coach off of one of the two highest profile programs in the association over to the other (e.g. who replaces Herdman as women's coach, and what happens if they don't move Herdman over, what is the risk of losing him anyway, etc.); and (d) because Zambrano had only shown an on-field improvement in results in the only metric he really had (the Gold Cup Q-F appearance after not even scoring a goal in the previous two tourneys, never mind advancing out of the group), there also would have been obvious legal dimension (covering one's ass to prevent a wrongful dismissal lawsuit) that I'm imagining even the CSA leadership, for all their faults would have known that they would have needed to discuss and consider.  Comparing the two situations as though they are the same and suggesting that Herdman's hire was just your run-of-the-mill typical hiring situation to fill a vacant position is disingenuous at best, and deliberately misleading at worst.

At the very least the article should be acknowledging the difference, particularly when the author of the article boasts within the article about all of the research that he's done (but somehow he missed knowing about this?) This, along with unnecessarily putting words into other people's mouths and the one-sided discussion of CSB and various other points in the article reeks of having an agenda rather the article being an unbiased investigation.

That, combined with the johnny-come-lately aspect to all of this (I guess I find bandwagon-jumping in all its forms to be mildly annoying) is what I find irritating. I would have welcomed (and still would) an unbiased investigation as to what really happened with Zambrano.

Edited July 13, 2022 by Gian-Luca

[Gian-Luca]

47 minutes ago, Sal333 said:

I don't know what you think this proves but it goes completely against the point you want to make. The board reviewed the firing of Zambrano and the hiring of Herdman. They approved it. It went through the proper process. The CSA was under no obligation to tell us the reasons why. Very few teams declare the real reasons one coach is fired and another is hired. But that didn't happen with the women's team coach which was the point in the article.

See my response to El Hombre. I don't think you understand what my point has been, but hopefully will after reading that.

 

[SpursFlu]

11 minutes ago, phresh said:

This isn’t an either or situation. The two can coexist without the CSA and the players getting cucked

I'm not exactly sure what you're saying but I think you mean getting screwed. I think the current arrangement is more than fair and the players definitely shouldn't be dictating who works at the CSA. In fact maybe the players deserve less over the next year because the players behavior over the past couple months has really put a dent in the interest and ability for the men's team to create revenue. Luckily for them they have the World Cup as a platform but if it was just business as usual I'm not sure I'd be tuning in for the next bit and I know a lot of people feel the same

[ted]

2 hours ago, narduch said:

My prediction is the deal gets renegotiated.

Which would be an excellent result.

[costarg]

16 hours ago, grigorio said:

I get this line of thinking but I don’t really buy it. We have shat the bed after having our hopes up countless times before. Most of us also thought Herdman was crazy and hell he himself probably thought the same when he started talking WC 2022 as a possibility and we knew about a Phonzie and David at the time.  
 

To think that two players would change the course of this program’s history in such a dramatic way is a stretch. In fact, in the end it probably wasn’t even because of these players but Herdman himself and NO ONE predicted his success in getting CanMNT to where they are now. 
 

It’s like for the very first time ever our optimism actually panned out and we instantly forgot about the 1000 times we were heartbroken just before it. 

Wait, we're mixing two different things here.  Yes, we we've been disappointed with the lack of success and results regarding CANMNT for ~20 years, but it isn't fair to say it's ok to assume we'd fail again and CSA could gamble on that just because we always did even with the Double D's in the pipeline.  CSA did know what we had coming up at the time.

I know we had poor results for a long time and we didn't believe in the CSA, but I can tell you others as well as myself were confident about making the 2022 world cup given the upcoming players.  In fact i put a bet with my wife back in 2016 that we'd qualify in 2022, and I can guarantee it wasn't a gamble at the time, I was convinced we'd qualify on merit. 

[Kingston]

4 hours ago, SpecialK said:

My question- why do people think the CPL will suddenly collapsed? 
the CPL owners have deep pockets 

I don't think anyone is predicting it will suddenly collapse.

What people want to see is a league that is financially viable at the full national level without having to rely on sugar daddy owners.  Right now the deep-pocketed owners are stepping in to prime the pump and get the league fully off the ground.  There's no guarantee they'll want to do that forever even if, financially, they could afford to.  Hence the discussions about attendance, media contracts, payroll, and so on that you see on these boards.

[Watchmen]

40 minutes ago, Kingston said:

I don't think anyone is predicting it will suddenly collapse.

What people want to see is a league that is financially viable at the full national level without having to rely on sugar daddy owners.  Right now the deep-pocketed owners are stepping in to prime the pump and get the league fully off the ground.  There's no guarantee they'll want to do that forever even if, financially, they could afford to.  Hence the discussions about attendance, media contracts, payroll, and so on that you see on these boards.

But (and I think this is the tricky debate), do we want money that should be going to support & prepare the national teams being diverted to the CPL?

[SpursFlu]

Who would have ever guessed making the World Cup we be so unfun 

[Kingston]

4 minutes ago, Watchmen said:

But (and I think this is the tricky debate), do we want money that should be going to support & prepare the national teams being diverted to the CPL?

Personally, I don't. The CPL should be set up to stand on its own as a business.

[SpursFlu]

Hey you.. new national soccer league..

Stand on your own 2 feet

[costarg]

5 hours ago, SpecialK said:

My question- why do people think the CPL will suddenly collapsed? 
the CPL owners have deep pockets 

Ottawa - Atlético Madrid

Forge - Bob Young 

Cavalry FC - spruce Meadows

Pacific FC- SixFive Sports & Entertainment ( they even want to own a 2nd team ) 

Valour - Winnipeg football community

halifax - they sell out almost every game. 

Doesn't mean they're willing to lose money on their investments.  CPL doesn't exactly have big revenue last i checked.

[johnyb]

How do we KNOW that Preistman was choosen instead of Wilkinson because Wilkinson was asking too many questions? Oh yeah... because Wilkinson said so. Just like so much of this, we don't know shit. Get this done so we can talk about Soccer.