goleafs67

This is the type of nuance and fact-based understanding that's been missing from almost all discourse on the topic. People reflexively hate on the CSA and blame them for being incompetent in signing the deal with CSB. In hindsight it may look like a horrible deal, but at the time I'd love to hear what other path could have brought in guaranteed revenue despite what most realists would have predicted would be many more years of mediocre results from the men. 
That doesn't absolve the CSA from other longstanding organizational and more recent operational issues (ie. lost merchandising revenue), but from the players' open letter it's clear they didn't bother to look deeper and went nuclear. They cost the organization, and by extension themselves, even more money l, and took an unneeded hit to the growing goodwill they've built over the past three plus years of results heading into the most important year of the organization's history. 
They could benefit from hiring outside counsel to run the negotiation and allow themselves to focus on WC preparations. As seen through the years with other federations, these negotiations take time and (the potential  spectre of) legal action. Other national teams rarely resort to the solution the men did Sunday, even after years of protracted negotiations and frustrations.
Get together, get it sorted, and move on with what should be the best year ever for Canadian soccer. 

This is the type of nuance and fact-based understanding that's been missing from almost all discourse on the topic. People reflexively hate on the CSA and blame them for being incompetent in signing the deal with CSB. In hindsight it may look like a horrible deal, but at the time I'd love to hear what other path could have brought in guaranteed revenue despite what most realists would have predicted would be many more years of mediocre results from the men. 
That doesn't absolve the CSA from other longstanding organizational and more recent operational issues (ie. lost merchandising revenue), but from the players' open letter it's clear they didn't bother to look deeper and went nuclear. They cost the organization, and by extension themselves, even more money l, and took an unneeded hit to the growing goodwill they've built over the past three plus years of results heading into the most important year of the organization's history. 
They could benefit from hiring outside counsel to run the negotiation and allow themselves to focus on WC preparations. As seen through the years with other federations, these negotiations take time and (the potential  spectre of) legal action. Other national teams rarely resort to the solution the men did Sunday, even after years of protracted negotiations and frustrations.
Get together, get it sorted, and move on with what should be the best year ever for Canadian soccer. 

This is the type of nuance and fact-based understanding that's been missing from almost all discourse on the topic. People reflexively hate on the CSA and blame them for being incompetent in signing the deal with CSB. In hindsight it may look like a horrible deal, but at the time I'd love to hear what other path could have brought in guaranteed revenue despite what most realists would have predicted would be many more years of mediocre results from the men. 
That doesn't absolve the CSA from other longstanding organizational and more recent operational issues (ie. lost merchandising revenue), but from the players' open letter it's clear they didn't bother to look deeper and went nuclear. They cost the organization, and by extension themselves, even more money l, and took an unneeded hit to the growing goodwill they've built over the past three plus years of results heading into the most important year of the organization's history. 
They could benefit from hiring outside counsel to run the negotiation and allow themselves to focus on WC preparations. As seen through the years with other federations, these negotiations take time and (the potential  spectre of) legal action. Other national teams rarely resort to the solution the men did Sunday, even after years of protracted negotiations and frustrations.
Get together, get it sorted, and move on with what should be the best year ever for Canadian soccer. 

This is the type of nuance and fact-based understanding that's been missing from almost all discourse on the topic. People reflexively hate on the CSA and blame them for being incompetent in signing the deal with CSB. In hindsight it may look like a horrible deal, but at the time I'd love to hear what other path could have brought in guaranteed revenue despite what most realists would have predicted would be many more years of mediocre results from the men. 
That doesn't absolve the CSA from other longstanding organizational and more recent operational issues (ie. lost merchandising revenue), but from the players' open letter it's clear they didn't bother to look deeper and went nuclear. They cost the organization, and by extension themselves, even more money l, and took an unneeded hit to the growing goodwill they've built over the past three plus years of results heading into the most important year of the organization's history. 
They could benefit from hiring outside counsel to run the negotiation and allow themselves to focus on WC preparations. As seen through the years with other federations, these negotiations take time and (the potential  spectre of) legal action. Other national teams rarely resort to the solution the men did Sunday, even after years of protracted negotiations and frustrations.
Get together, get it sorted, and move on with what should be the best year ever for Canadian soccer. 

This is the type of nuance and fact-based understanding that's been missing from almost all discourse on the topic. People reflexively hate on the CSA and blame them for being incompetent in signing the deal with CSB. In hindsight it may look like a horrible deal, but at the time I'd love to hear what other path could have brought in guaranteed revenue despite what most realists would have predicted would be many more years of mediocre results from the men. 
That doesn't absolve the CSA from other longstanding organizational and more recent operational issues (ie. lost merchandising revenue), but from the players' open letter it's clear they didn't bother to look deeper and went nuclear. They cost the organization, and by extension themselves, even more money l, and took an unneeded hit to the growing goodwill they've built over the past three plus years of results heading into the most important year of the organization's history. 
They could benefit from hiring outside counsel to run the negotiation and allow themselves to focus on WC preparations. As seen through the years with other federations, these negotiations take time and (the potential  spectre of) legal action. Other national teams rarely resort to the solution the men did Sunday, even after years of protracted negotiations and frustrations.
Get together, get it sorted, and move on with what should be the best year ever for Canadian soccer. 

The heyday of cable sports tv was in the 90s to the early aughts. There was a window for Canada's national teams to get long-term investment style spending from TSN/SN as the CFL, World Juniors or curling did. But we all know it was missed.
Now paid linear tv viewing is on the decline. The penetration rate has dropped from 90% to 50% per Canadian household. The majority of tv viewers for 90% of the programs are >55 years which is of little interest for advertisers.
This means the sports networks have been in cost conscious mode. They have been laying off people and focused only on sports that can generate mass market audiences, create vertical corporate synergies and/or get it free/low cost via show to earn (i.e CHL, NLL) and via US broadcasters.
In aggregate, soccer viewership is on the fringe of being a top 5 tv sport. But given all the tourneys, leagues & 2 genders, it is fragmented in more than 10 ways. World Cup & Euros get top 5 sports viewing numbers. The rest do not. Many have enough of a core passionate base that will pay up to watch. That's why TSN/SN got outbid for the Premier & Champions Leagues and sports streamers/multicultural tv focus on soccer.
Canada Soccer rights was never a top 10 soccer property till the recent WCQs. Inventory availability is irregular and there is less than 15 M&W matches/yr. Most matches are against non top 25 soccer nations.  If against European nations, it was on a weekday with no chance of a sizeable audience.
Even if the sports networks were paying the CSA, the money would be the same or less than Mediapro. USSF recently separated from SUM and signed their own deal with Turner. They have a world champion team that gets top 5 soccer ratings even against 2 bit nations, they can get a Hispanic audience that is often larger than the English and have 10x the population. The deal was US$25 million/yr for 8 years.

The men overplayed their hand by not playing on Sunday. At best, for the lowest paid players who played WCQ, it is about 1 year's worth of salary that they're haggling about. If it is about pre or post tax issues, it is even less. Since most of the top players donate their winnings to charity and the US men just agreed to split their winnings with the women, I'm puzzled why money is such a factor for the Canadian men. Even the Jamaican players haven't refused to play yet even though they haven't been paid for months.
It isn't life changing money for the players as most of the World Cup qualifying benefits for them will accrue at the club level if they can take advantage of it. For the CSA, it will more of an impact as it is bonus bridge money that will help fund the teams especially at the youth levels till the 2026 windfall arrives.
If the men were looking for structural changes. Then, they need to play the long game. They should have also looped in the women who had started discussing structural issues with the CSA earlier this year.
The US women's battle took about 6 years. They didn't refuse to play any matches but took their case to the public and the courts. They didn't refuse to play when revelations showed USSF ignored disclosures that national team players were being abused in the USSF-managed/funded NWSL. The women lost the court case but since they won the case in public, the USSF still gave them a US$24 million settlement and they got the equal pay deal they wanted.
On a related note, the Canadian women's team hasn't really been subsidising the men all these years. Their World Cup money even for making the R16 is only US$1 million. OTP money is only for the women. But the Women's World Cup 2015 did support all teams pre-CSB. In 2015, the CSA reported $107 million in revenue of which $82 million came from hosting WWC15. Net revenue was $11.8 million.
 
 
 

I've been reading pages of a forum for the last 2 hours instead of watching Soccer and I'm amazed at how many people on here are taking the players side without knowing any of the facts. All we know is the Players decided to not play the game and posted a brief letter as to why. The letter did not state their list of demands and the CSA, in their press conference, stated their offer was fair and was consistent with other federations around the world. The players knew cancelling the game was going to piss off thousands of fans. Bontis' press conference wasn't pretty, but what if he is telling the truth. All I can say is that in all the Pro sports strikes I've seen over the years the owners and players always come out ahead and the only losers are the fans. Nothing that happened today changes my view.

@The Beaver 2.0Bontis compared the CSA's offer (which we know is 30%) to that of other WC-bound nations in terms of what they pay.
While he was overly-passionate and everyone here is shitting upon him (and fair enough on the tone front), at the end of the day I understood the CSA's basic position on what he said - we can't afford the players' proposal and our 30% is in line with what the other WC nations provide to their players.
Conversely, can anyone tell me why the players feel that 30% is unacceptable and it has to be 40%? Because I don't understand what the reasoning is based on the players poorly worded "Where is the money?" statement. If they have done their own research and discovered otherwise about what the benchmark is than what the CSA says it is, that would be one thing but I'm assuming they haven't because there is absolutely nothing about that in their statement
It pains me to say all this because it's the players I cheer for, not the association. But I can't let that blind me that I don't know where the insistence on this issue - to the point of screwing over the fans in BC (or whoever else travelled for the game), the thousands of fans who were going to watch online and themselves (denying themselves a prep match) - is coming from.
The WC ticket situation, I am more sympathetic with but it sounded like there would be progress on that, at least.

For both the CSA and the players qualifying for the world cup in Qatar id found money, like winning the lottery. It baffles me completely that clowns on both sides of the issue could not see beyond the dollar signs blocking their line of vision. You players get some bonus money because you have certainly earned it. The CSA gets some money to run or establish the programs and matches which will ensure that Canada continues to produce the strong national teams of late and is able to improve scouting and run camps for younger teams. Seems sensible, no? Prairiecanuck is right, methinks. Greed on both sides. Idiots all round.

This sounds great in principle, but is pure fantasy. It just isn’t commercial reality - competitively sensitive terms won’t be publicly disclosed. Maybe the players will be able to negotiate access to the docs under a CA, but it won’t go beyond that. 
 
Looking back in hindsight post Olympic gold and post WC qualification, it seems like the CSA cut a lousy deal. In reality, it was in all likelihood the only deal on the table. TSN, Rogers, CBC were nowhere to be found. 
 
Finally, as to the Hamilton mafia, looking at another way, these guys have been the only ones willing to fund soccer in this country of late. In a more favourable light, they may be framed as generous benefactors. 
 
 

I understand where the players are coming from but they’ve screwed up here too, royally. They might be 100% correct in their position against the CSA but they are also fucking over fans in an unreasonable way. 
They might succeed in getting Nick Bontis fired though cause it’s hard to imagine the CSA exec surviving intact after this.

Amateur hour for the players. They have lots of time to dispute this later toward the September window. The players could not have picked a better way to ruin good will among otherwise excited fans. Dumb move, boys!
Amateur hour for the CSA which was unable to arrange a June 5 match initially. Two games in Vancouver in a week cancelled. Brutal! Simply brutal!

"Hey guys, let's play the game for the fans and figure this out afterwards"
No?
Not saying they don't have a gripe but they sure as hell lost a lot of goodwill with this decision.

The curtain has been pulled back... interesting look into how Campagna got involved as a training player and has stuck around. Some good quotes on the Herdman and the team
https://www.whitecapsfc.com/wfc2/news/the-greatest-honour-of-my-life-how-wfc2-defender-cristian-campagna-got-called-up

The curtain has been pulled back... interesting look into how Campagna got involved as a training player and has stuck around. Some good quotes on the Herdman and the team
https://www.whitecapsfc.com/wfc2/news/the-greatest-honour-of-my-life-how-wfc2-defender-cristian-campagna-got-called-up

With all the money I've given the CSA these days, it better be a seat on the board of directors.

Whoops!
I clearly missed that post 😅
Fair play by you @Shway to call me out on it! 🤣

@Olympique_de_Marseille you're better than this....😂

The curtain has been pulled back... interesting look into how Campagna got involved as a training player and has stuck around. Some good quotes on the Herdman and the team
https://www.whitecapsfc.com/wfc2/news/the-greatest-honour-of-my-life-how-wfc2-defender-cristian-campagna-got-called-up

The curtain has been pulled back... interesting look into how Campagna got involved as a training player and has stuck around. Some good quotes on the Herdman and the team
https://www.whitecapsfc.com/wfc2/news/the-greatest-honour-of-my-life-how-wfc2-defender-cristian-campagna-got-called-up

The curtain has been pulled back... interesting look into how Campagna got involved as a training player and has stuck around. Some good quotes on the Herdman and the team
https://www.whitecapsfc.com/wfc2/news/the-greatest-honour-of-my-life-how-wfc2-defender-cristian-campagna-got-called-up

The curtain has been pulled back... interesting look into how Campagna got involved as a training player and has stuck around. Some good quotes on the Herdman and the team
https://www.whitecapsfc.com/wfc2/news/the-greatest-honour-of-my-life-how-wfc2-defender-cristian-campagna-got-called-up

The curtain has been pulled back... interesting look into how Campagna got involved as a training player and has stuck around. Some good quotes on the Herdman and the team
https://www.whitecapsfc.com/wfc2/news/the-greatest-honour-of-my-life-how-wfc2-defender-cristian-campagna-got-called-up

The curtain has been pulled back... interesting look into how Campagna got involved as a training player and has stuck around. Some good quotes on the Herdman and the team
https://www.whitecapsfc.com/wfc2/news/the-greatest-honour-of-my-life-how-wfc2-defender-cristian-campagna-got-called-up