Author’s note: Before he jetted off to the Olympics last week, Canadian Soccer Association president Victor Montagliani chatted with Canadian Soccer News on a variety of subjects. This is the fourth – and final – of a short series of stories, based on that chat.
In the final moments of our chat, I asked Victor how the recent sweeping round of CSA reforms are working out, in terms of the practical, day-to-day operations of the new, streamlined board of directors.
“First, I think it’s gone well in the sense that the people around the table are very good,” he said. “And at the end of the day, it’s more about the people than the structure. The structure needed to change, and it did change, but I think the people around the table – starting with my fellow board members – are very good.
“Everybody’s on board. There’s healthy debate.”
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But Montagliani cautioned that reform is still a work in progress.
“The Governance Committee chairman, Don Story, probably doesn’t want to hear this from me, but they’ve got a lot of work to do, in terms of finishing off a lot of the housekeeping items, and finding what are some of the issues that we need to tweak.
“This model’s going to be organic. It used to be reviewed every three or four years. Maybe not like the big pieces that just moved, but there’s always stuff that needs to be looked at.”
As far as the CSA’s new president is concerned, governance reform is a job that never really ends.
“I think it’s important that it’s constant, and it’s continuous. That’s one of the problems that happened. It’s not so much putting a finger on one thing or another. We really didn’t pay attention to it for decades. And I don’t care what you do. If you don’t pay attention to something for that long, it’s probably going to need some oil – or a diet.
“We’ve just got to get the president on a diet now!”
Next week: My MLSE / TFC series kicks off for real.
Onward!