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The sun finally shines on Canadian soccer.


Robert

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After being subjected to 21 one years of overcast skies, the sun has finally broken through on Canada's soccer horizon. The darkest period in our history ended today, when the Canadian Soccer Association fired Kevan Pipe.

During Mr. Pipe's reign Canada: 1) lost the Canadian Soccer League, the only professional domestic soccer league this country has ever had, 2) failed to qualify for the 5 World Cup Finals, and 3) numberous star players, who through their ancestry have opted to represent other nations in international play. To his credit he managed to obtain the rights for Canada to host the World Youth Championships, and event that will only last three weeks, leaving only a $60,000,000 taxpayer-paid-for stadium, as legacy for a Toronto franchise in the American owned and operated Major League Soccer.

At this point in time any change is to be an improvement and hope for progress in the future.

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In the end it turns out Kevan more than likely and inadvertantly did himself in when he obtained the WYC hosting rights and all that goes with that.

Operating a concern (CSA), with no money to speak off, and now getting the money making rights to the U20 tournament, did he really think that he would be allowed to handle such vast sums of revenue as will be generated from the sales of all the tickets to this event? That would have been a nice retirement package, right Kev? Unfortunately for Kevan, and fortunately for Canadian soccer there are a lot bigger sharks out there just waiting for a small time operator like Pipe to latch on to something bigger than they can handle, and he was never smart enough to pull a Jack Warner.

So now that there's going to be someone new in charge, what will happen with all the revenue from this tournament (remembering that Kevan has already publicly stated how well and how many tickets have been sold thus far), and the money from the Canadian part of the next Gold Cup tournament, and the money from the FIFA Women's World Cup if we ever get that. Yes, Canadian soccer might finally be able make some money, but what will happen with that money? How will soccer in this country benefit from hosting these events. The United States' legacy from the 1994 World Cup was the MLS, what will our legacy be? One things for sure though, Kevan Pipe won't get his grubby little paws on all that money, and based on how things have gone in Canadian soccer over the last 21 years, that's a good thing.

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