CSA Elections May 2023

[Bigandy]

1 minute ago, narduch said:

Its not about the CPL players but the $3 million v the $1 million they used to receive from IMG.

It allowed them to do things like fly private instead of commercial.

You are so myopic in your hate for CPL that you can't see the bigger picture

Add also that without the CSB deal we dont get a world cup. Do all the duals commit without it? Maybe. Does Canada hop on the bandwagon quite as hard? Maybe. Do the players push themselves individually to higher levels knowing there are guys like waterman, farsi, mcknaughton etc from the CPL pushing to take their spots. Maybe? 

Bottom line is the CSB deal provided both tangible and intangible benefits.

[Bigandy]

11 hours ago, SF said:

I called it a de facto subsidy. Which it is. 
 

The CSB owners are the same as the CPL owners. They make money (which is fair enough, by the way) on the CSB such that they can sustain the CPL. The revenues from the CSB were traded away by the CSA.  Which they didn’t have to do.  

A simple tracing of the cash concludes it’s a subsidy. 

Do you think every single business transaction is a subsidy? I buy an apple from walmart and walmart turns around and uses that cash to pay for their marketing and logisitics etc. Therefore I am subsidizing walmart?  

A business transaction of goods is not the same as a subsidy..... 

[Bigandy]

6 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

You are never going to convince some of these guys because they are driven by visceral level emotion rather than rationality.

Another point to highlight is that Victor Montagliani & Co essentially handed over the keys to a significant portion of the cash windfall that was going to be generated by the co-host in 2026. This was done in a completely premeditated way but with minimal transparency because they would have known full well that the terms of the deal were counter to the interests of other key stakeholders within Canadian soccer.

A lot of the current uproar was caused by this being brought to light when the CMNT suddenly started winning key qualifier games in a CONCACAF context and qualified for Qatar. This meant that the terms that were absurdly slanted in favour of CSB in World Cup finals participation years by having a pre-determined annual fixed fee kicked in four years earlier than had initially been anticipated.

You realize that without the CSB deal there would be no cash windfall from hosting a world cup as we wouldnt be a cohost. The deal didnt hand over a cash windfall. The deal made hosting and therefore any increase in revenue possible. 

[Ansem]

12 hours ago, SF said:

There is clear prejudice against women - check your dictionary. Or ask the women. I’ve done both (and am not a woman, for the record) 

I'm not sure you grasp the meaning of that word if you believe that.

With your logic - the fact that the CSA was subsidizing WNT pro salaries in NWSL but didn't do that for men in MLS means this?

[Kingston]

11 minutes ago, Bigandy said:

Add also that without the CSB deal we dont get a world cup.

Is that actually true (not literally the CSB deal but the requirement for a domestic league)?  I've heard people say that here but I've never seen it or heard it from anyone official.

And would that requirement, if it exists, be like the requirement for the US to have a pro league when then hosted in 1994?

[CanadaFan123]

47 minutes ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

Given 0 out of 60 players on the provisional roster for the 2021 Gold Cup finals were from CanPL I would love to hear your rationale for that. Just because you want something to be the case doesn't make it so.

If a significant portion of the CMNT roster was playing their club level soccer in CanPL it would be easier to justify having CMNT related revenues flowing to the league but that isn't what is happening so there is no sensible analogy with what happened with MLS and SUM twenty to thirty years ago.

Instead, qualifying for Qatar with only a very marginal CanPL influence on the CMNT roster undermined much of the rationale that was provided for making the deal in the first place. It's a bit like England's FA pumping a huge portion of the money they earn off their men's and women's national teams into the Nationwide Conference so those clubs can stay fully professional. 

Very difficult to justify to other stakeholders on the men's side of things as being of sufficient benefit to them and impossible to justify on the women's side of things because of the blatant sexism involved in favouring the development of men's soccer over women's soccer.

The rationale is that CSB funded an already broke program when no one else would. In the middle of a pandemic no less. 

So CMNT revenues should flow straight to the players pockets? No youth funding? No funding to the top tier league that supports the game in the country? 

How would we ever get a significant portion of the player pool playing in CPL without investment? 
 

No sense in talking to you. Just because you want something to be true doesn’t make it so. 

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

14 minutes ago, Bigandy said:

You realize that without the CSB deal there would be no cash windfall from hosting a world cup as we wouldnt be a cohost...

Don't believe that's the case. What has been argued is that a domestic league was needed to be a World Cup host. Even if that's true which I find farfetched in the context of a co-hosting involving only 10 games as was already known to be the case by the time the CSB deal was signed, there's no obvious reason why a domestic league could not have still happened without the CSB deal. Maybe Bob Young and Scott Mitchell wouldn't have been interested at that point but something could still have been done at a lower budget that didn't require any subsidy from the CMNT and CWNT.  

Edited May 5, 2023 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[Bigandy]

3 hours ago, SF said:

I agree with you.

The concept the CSB deal is fine, but the CSA (a) horribly mispriced it and (b) failed on the transparency front. Regarding the lack of transparency I am torn as to whether is was simple incompetence or cynical calculation.  Probably a mix of both, with a more material weighting to simple incompetence. 

What I find difficult is the argument that this transaction didn't diminish the women's national team program. Maybe I am missing something, but the CSA sold the rights to the women's program to a business that needed the income of the transaction in order to start a men's professional league.

This is plainly two things - a subsidy (from revenues the CSA was choosing to forego) to the men's league and slap in the face to the women.

And, yes, I know the CSB said they would get around to starting a woman's league.  And they even hired a former CWNT player to start the process.  But she eventually quit (1 guess as to why) and the CSB didn't pursue the league. Which is fine - they don't like the business. But, what this demonstrates VERY clearly, is that the CSB deal prioritized the men's program over the women's (with. again, traded CSA revenues that are being generated by BOTH the men's and women's programs).

For the record, I find no fault with CSB. They made a deal, took some risk and it's worked out. The CSA, however, has utterly failed in it's role at national governing body.

To claim the deal is mispriced is very lazy without analysis. Lets look at the numbers 

Sponsorship revenue of CSA prior to CSB deal: 1m annually
Cost to televise games prior to CSB deal: 1m annually  
Net revenues per year from sponsorship prior to the CSB deal: $0

CSB deal revenues paid to CSA: 4m
Cost to televise games post CSB deal: 0$
Cost to create a marketing division: 0$
Profits of CSB: 1.2 million  (see explanation below)
Revenues/profits the CSB has raised from CSA deal: 8.2million MINUS 1) costs to aquire the sponsorship (operating costs, marketing fees, hiring key personal) Lets call this 2million. (10 staff members on 75k a year is is 750k paid to the staff plus around 30% on top of that which is paid for by the employer for CPP, EI etc Therefore its easy to assume 1million in staffing costs. Now add it rents, marketing fees, travel expenses etc. and its reasonable to assume 2million in opertating costs) MINUS 2) The sponsorship deals that only signed on because canada is hosting a WC and the sponsors who only signed on because they also get access to the CPL. Theres no real way to tell this number but sponsorship revenues jumping from 1million to 8.2million clearly are impacted by something. That something is a proper marketing company and a better product offering (WC and CPL added to CSA). Therefore lets assume 1million of revenue is due to the added value of CPL and hosting a WC. MINUS 3) the fee of 4million paid to CSA.  
NOTE: The 8.2 million in sponsorship is during a world cup year where there is unprecedented success. It is highly unlikey that the 8.2 million will drop significantly in 2023-2025. 
8.2 million minus 2 million minus 1 million minus 4 million is 1.2million.   Therefore the CSB is 1.2 million better off because of the CSB deal. The CSA is 4million better off. 


Where exactly is the horrible financials in my analysis. We can pick apart things like the 2million in costs or 1 million in sponsorship that only comes around because of the CPL, but then we can also pick apart the 8.2million in revenue. Its likely that all 3 of these numbers will fall in non world cup years.  

I would love to hear why you think these financials are so horrible. 



 

[Bigandy]

9 minutes ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

Don't believe that's the case. What has been argued is that a domestic league was needed to be a World Cup host. Even if that's true which I find farfetched in the context of a co-hosting involving only 10 games as was already known to be the case by the time the CSB deal was signed, there's no obvious reason why a domestic league could not have still happened without the CSB deal. Maybe Bob Young and Scott Mitchell wouldn't have been interested at that point but something could still have been done at a lower budget that didn't require any subsidy from the CMNT and CWNT.  

You dont have to believe it to be true...  Has there ever been an example of a host country not having a domestic league? Fifa has incredibly strict requirements that they dont budge on. Thats why edmonton isnt a host city. 

Furthermore, there was literally 0 other offers on the table for a domestic league. In theory its possible. Its possible canada can have 17 levels on the soccer pyramid.... in theory. But time to come back to reality. I am not sure that i have ever heard a weaker argument. "The cpl shouldnt exist because hypothetically other people could have started a better league even though no one has done so successfully in the past and no one else at the time showed any interest..... but I am sure that plenty of offers to start a pro league were just around the corner......

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

5 minutes ago, Bigandy said:

...Has there ever been an example of a host country not having a domestic league?...

You were literally provided with one a few posts up, i.e. the USA in 1994. Another example would be Canada for the Women's World Cup in 2015.

[Bigandy]

2 minutes ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

You were literally provided with one a few posts up, i.e. the USA in 1994. Another example would be Canada for the Women's World Cup in 2015.

The MLS was founded on December 17,  1993 and was part of the bid process for the 94 world cup. The league began play in 1996 but it is because of the world cup that it came into existence. The womens world cup does not have the same requirement as the men to host. I should have said, are there any examples of hosting a MENS world cup where a domestic Mens league is not required.  

If anything the example of the 94 world cup furthers the point that a domestic league is required to host a WC. 

[narduch]

27 minutes ago, Kingston said:

Is that actually true (not literally the CSB deal but the requirement for a domestic league)?  I've heard people say that here but I've never seen it or heard it from anyone official.

And would that requirement, if it exists, be like the requirement for the US to have a pro league when then hosted in 1994?

We put it in the bid documents.

Who knows if FIFA would have called our bluff.

[Bigandy]

7 minutes ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

You were literally provided with one a few posts up, i.e. the USA in 1994. Another example would be Canada for the Women's World Cup in 2015.

Wikipedia also says that a div 1 league was created in 1988 as a condition of hosting the 94 world cup. The div 1 league eventually turned into the MLS.  

[Bigandy]

36 minutes ago, Kingston said:

Is that actually true (not literally the CSB deal but the requirement for a domestic league)?  I've heard people say that here but I've never seen it or heard it from anyone official.

And would that requirement, if it exists, be like the requirement for the US to have a pro league when then hosted in 1994?

There is no evidence to suggest the opposite. Anytime a CSA rep has talked about it, they say a pro league is mandatory. The Pro league was a condition of the world cup in 1994. They had both a div 1 league prior to 1994, had television rights signed and had several World Cup Stars signed to the league prior to the official kick off of the MLS. A pro league was 100% a requirement for the USA to host a WC. A pro league fully operational prior to a WC match is not the requirement and that is why someone like OTP is confused over the domestic pro league requirement. 

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

36 minutes ago, Bigandy said:

The MLS was founded on December 17,  1993 and was part of the bid process for the 94 world cup. The league began play in 1996 but it is because of the world cup that it came into existence. The womens world cup does not have the same requirement as the men to host. I should have said, are there any examples of hosting a MENS world cup where a domestic Mens league is not required.  

If anything the example of the 94 world cup furthers the point that a domestic league is required to host a WC. 

The promise of a league is different from having a league in place at the time of the hosting, so goalposts are being shifted in a big way, but so what? Even if we accept what your saying is accurate in the context of a 10 game co-hosting using two MLS stadia why did having a domestic league depend on having the CSB deal?

A lower budget approach more in tune with the Easton report could have been followed that wouldn't have needed to be subsidized with national team revenues like this. Bob Young and Scott Mitchell wanted the CSB deal and persuaded Victor Montagliani to move in that direction but who says they needed to be involved?

In a similar sort of way the USSF could have selected the lower budget and already active APSL as their D1 league instead of MLS in the early to mid-90s and there would have been no need to "BringBackTheBlizzard" in 2007 because they would have been in from the start. When the CSL folded in 1992, the Blizzard, Supra/Impact and 86ers/Whitecaps were all hoping to be part of the new USSF-sanctioned D1 that way. I was active on internet forums at that time as it was all unfolding.

 

Edited May 5, 2023 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[narduch]

Lol the bus league enters the chat

[CanadaFan123]

43 minutes ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

You were literally provided with one a few posts up, i.e. the USA in 1994. Another example would be Canada for the Women's World Cup in 2015.

There was a league prior to MLS

Edited May 5, 2023 by CanadaFan123

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

3 minutes ago, CanadaFan123 said:

There was a league prior to MLS

What point are you even trying to make with that?

[El Hombre]

1 hour ago, narduch said:

You are so myopic in your hate for CPL that you can't see the bigger picture

It's also a non-sensical argument if you take into consideration that both Joel Waterman and James Pantemis were included on the provisional squad and had prior CPL experience.  Even more so when you consider that now three more players from that provisional list (Morgan, Bayiha and Singh) all ply their trade in CPL.

It's as valid as saying: We had no one from La Liga on our 2021 Gold Cup 60-man provisional list, therefore it is not a good league for developing players.  So sorry Mr. Larin, your club team doesn't meet the standards of the CANMNT.

[Bigandy]

31 minutes ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

The promise of a league is different from having a league in place at the time of the hosting, so goalposts are being shifted in a big way, but so what? Even if we accept what your saying is accurate in the context of a 10 game co-hosting using two MLS stadia why did having a domestic league depend on having the CSB deal?

A lower budget approach more in tune with the Easton report could have been followed that wouldn't have needed to be subsidized with national team revenues like this. Bob Young and Scott Mitchell wanted the CSB deal and persuaded Victor Montagliani to move in that direction but who says they needed to be involved?

In a similar sort of way the USSF could have selected the lower budget and already active APSL as their D1 league instead of MLS in the early to mid-90s and there would have been no need to "BringBackTheBlizzard" in 2007 because they would have been in from the start. When the CSL folded in 1992, the Blizzard, Supra/Impact and 86ers/Whitecaps were all hoping to be part of the new USSF-sanctioned D1 that way. I was active on internet forums at that time as it was all unfolding.

 

Ummmm you realize that contracts with conditions are suuuuuper common. Theres no goal posts being move. The condition of having a world cup is that the country needs a domestic league. It had one in 1988 and then enhanced it and created the MLS in 1993 with games starting in 1996. Companies are created before they sell their first product. Does that mean the company only starts existing once consumers start purchasing products. Of course not, the company has to pay operational expenses and start logisitics in order to get a product ready for the customer and that takes time. 

No one is saying that a domestic league requires a CSB deal. We are saying the CPL requires the CSB deal. With literally ZERO alternatives to the CPL, the CPL is the best option on the table. 

Youre spewing nonsense but lets go down your rabbit hole.

If you are the president of the CSA and someone says, Hey I will give you 4million a year to create a pro league, take on all the risk, and I am the only person willing to put my money where my mouth is, are you going to turn them down? 
If you say you would turn them down, what are your next steps? Who creates the league. Where do the investors come from? How do you generate that 4 million in additional revenue you just turned down? 

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

...and on and on. Here's the nuance you may not be grasping. I have no problem with the notion that a new D1 league sanctioned by the CSA may have been needed to justify a solo bid for 2026 back when all the talk of a national pro league revolved around CFL owners collectively starting soccer teams and having a soccer league aligned with the NASL and Traffic Sports. The USSF didn't want to have anything to do with 2026 at that point after what happened with FIFA corruption leading to Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022, so there was an opening for Canada to do it instead.

But that's not what ultimately happened because Blatter got booted out. All we are receiving is 10 games on the side of a hosting by the USSF and the United States and the two stadia that are being used in Canada are both MLS stadia in a USSF sanctioned league. I strongly suspect that Bob Young, Scott Mitchell and Victor Montagliani continued to proceed with the CSB deal anyway not because it was in any way necessary to secure the limited co-host at that point but simply because they wanted to. CanPL was Victor Montagliani's pet legacy project at that point more than anything else.

Edited May 5, 2023 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[Bison44]

2 minutes ago, Bigandy said:

Youre spewing nonsense but lets go down your rabbit hole.

BigAndy..you are making plenty of good points here and elsewhere...but pace yourself.  Talking to the parrot is a waste of time.  You know the old quote about the " the idiot drags you down to his level and beats you with his experience".  He has been spewing this nonsense about the CPL being a "pet" project that only Mitchell/Young/Monttaglini wanted.  Backs that up with word salad about bus leagues/mls farm clubs and constantly moves the goalposts about former CPL progressing to CMNT players, when anyone with eyes can see every year his argument gets weaker and weaker.  

[Bigandy]

5 minutes ago, Bison44 said:

BigAndy..you are making plenty of good points here and elsewhere...but pace yourself.  Talking to the parrot is a waste of time.  You know the old quote about the " the idiot drags you down to his level and beats you with his experience".  He has been spewing this nonsense about the CPL being a "pet" project that only Mitchell/Young/Monttaglini wanted.  Backs that up with word salad about bus leagues/mls farm clubs and constantly moves the goalposts about former CPL progressing to CMNT players, when anyone with eyes can see every year his argument gets weaker and weaker.  

Youre 100% right. I shouldnt be eating word salad today.  

Its interesting hes on the forum so often when so many of the regulars on here have called him out on his bias/nonsense. 

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

^^^meanwhile we are still waiting for any kind of concrete proof for the assertion that the only reason the 2026 co-hosting is happening is because of the CSB deal.

[Ansem]

I mean, there's no such things as a "perfect situation" but people need to realize that a model like CSB that copied SUM might be the only thing making a pro soccer league viable in Canada and the US in an environment where you have the "big 4" leagues on top of that.

Anyone thinking CPL is doable without CSB is smoking some good stuff, care to share? That's why I have massive doubts about Project 8. Could it happen? Sure but not remotely close to the scope of what Matheson is talking about (competitive in salaries with NWSL AND refusing to work with CSB? - 🙄)

Edited May 5, 2023 by Ansem