Everywhere else in the world, youth clubs benefit from a young player coming through their system and catching on with a professional side. The money that they receive goes back into their system and it further strengthens their infrastructure and helps to further professionalize the game.

That cash influx is what motivates them to spend the time and resources they do into developing young talent.

In Canada, that motivation is largely volunteer based. Things are changing, the game is being professionalized, but will the attitudes on monetizing change with it?

CSN spoke to Jason deVos, former national team player, TSN analyst and a member of the group organizing the OPDL on what clubs like Toronto FC should be doing to give back to the youth clubs.

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Why don’t Canadian clubs ask for transfer fees when youth players sign their first professional contract?

Yesterday we showed how FIFA mandates that transfer fees must be paid back to youth clubs. We also went into the details of why that practice isn’t more common in Canada.

Today, we’re hearing from Gary Miller, the head of Bryst Academy (a part of the SAAC private academies group) on why Canada has it so backwards with its professional development and why the idea of paying for players – a practice used everywhere else in the world – has never taken off here.
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On most days, Canadian soccer is generally a pretty backwards place. If we were half as good on the development side of the game as we are at playing the politics of it, we’d be giving the Germany’s and the Brazil’s of the world a run for their money.

And even when everyone agrees on something needs to be changed, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to happen. Some are afraid of upsetting the apple cart. Others are just too mired in their own bureaucracy to ever hope of pushing the game forward an inch.

But where the contrasts to the rest of the world are most obvious is in the money.

Everyone knows that we’re largely a recreational soccer country. And that’s fine. And everyone knows that we need to better professionalize what we’re doing. And that’s starting to change. But when you start to look at some of the other factors that come along with professionalizing the game – standards that exist everywhere else in the world – people here get a little sensitive.

Primarily I’m talking about parents and administrators getting uppity about the idea of clubs buying and selling players.

For a second, lets put aside the misnomer that MLS does not pay for players. They do. Publicly they say they don’t. But that’s becoming a harder and harder truth to tell in the face of so many obvious lies.

Instead, lets look at what CSN found within FIFA documents last week.

FIFA mandates when one player leaves a youth club and signs with a professional club that professional club must pay a fee for that player. Not suggests. Mandates. You can find all the details in its Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players.

Here is a sample.
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The Canadian Soccer League has won their desanctioning appeal. Sort of.

The CSL had taken the CSA before Sport Resolution Canada, to protest the way the governing body cut ties with the league in January.

Sport Resolution issued its report today and it has ruled that the CSL can play as a sanctioned league in 2013, under CSA governance. However, it also ruled that the CSA’s original intent to desanction was just and declared that the CSA will not sanction the league in 2014.

As part of the proceedings, the mediator looked at three things.
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Integrity? CONCACAF? Who knew?

In a report released late Friday by CONCACAF they confirm what most already knew: Jack Warner and Chuck Blazer weren't exactly operating on the up and up. In fact, CONCACAF's report is the latest in a long string of media stories and reports that detail just how corrupt these two men were.

You can read the report here but you'll get the gist after the jump

UPDATE: CONCACAF has released the entire 144 page document. You can read that here.
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Editors Note: Paul Varian was a member of the team who presented the Ontario Professional Development League proposal to Ontario Soccer this past weekend. Canadian Soccer News wanted to share a perspective from those who are trying to transform soccer in this province.

By: Paul Varian

Eight. One.

It tightens our jaws, clenches our fists, narrows our eyes. Our nation was humiliated and it still hurts.

When I go overseas to international soccer conferences, the first thing people say to me is, "Oh yeah, you lost 8-1 to Honduras didn't you?'

It's embarrassing to this day. A senior Canadian soccer coach echoed the same sentiment to me over the weekend.

Following that dreadful result for Canada's men's team against Honduras in last year's World Cup qualifier, there was much chat. So much hope had been built for Canadian soccer. People vented. Heads were requested from bodies. But among the anger, there were intelligent discussions about the future of Canadian soccer.

And these debates all arrived at the same place. Youth soccer was the key to it all and our current system was broken.
'We have to get it right', we all said. 'We have to change', we all agreed. But nobody really knew how.

On Saturday, the Ontario Soccer Association took a major step in fixing Canadian youth soccer with the unveiling of its much anticipated Ontario Player Development League (OPDL).
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