marktci Posted September 17, 2007 Share Posted September 17, 2007 Not sure where this belongs, but it's certainly interesting. There have been repeated references to the loss suffered by the U-20 tournament. I have seen some places where this loss (supposedly $2 million) has been attributed to Linford, but I haven't seen anything definitive. Well, according to an article in the Globe and Mail (an article about the decision not to host the Women's CONCACAF Olympic qualifying tournament), that's because there isn't anything definitive, at this point: quote:This summer's FIFA under-20 tournament drew over two million fans across Canada but ended up costing the CSA money. "It's safe to say we didn't make money," he (Angus Barrett, CSA Director at Large) said. "We did lose money." But that's not the case according to Peter Montopoli, national event director for the U-20 tournament. Montopoli says talk of a loss is wrong, adding it is too early to determine the bottom line. "At this point of time there is no financial statement that's been finalized," he said Monday from Ottawa. Once the final figures are determined, the CSA will talk to FIFA about how to handle them. The initial financial forecast for the event was a breakeven position, but then cumulative attendance soared to a tournament record 1.195 million. How is it that, two months after the tournament, we don't know whether we made or lost money? If the CSA truly doesn't know, why is the CSA telling us that they do know? If we lost money, how did this happen given that attendance exceeded projections and the forecast was for breaking even? Were the forecasts that bad? Was there no agreement with FIFA before the tournament as to how losses would be "handled" (whatever that means)? Globe and Mail article Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ag futbol Posted September 17, 2007 Share Posted September 17, 2007 quote: How is it that, two months after the tournament, we don't know whether we made or lost money? If the CSA truly doesn't know, why is the CSA telling us that they do know? If we lost money, how did this happen given that attendance exceeded projections and the forecast was for breaking even? Were the forecasts that bad? Was there no agreement with FIFA before the tournament as to how losses would be "handled" (whatever that means)? I laughed as soon as i read that as well. How could you not know by now how you did on the U-20? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terpfan68 Posted September 17, 2007 Share Posted September 17, 2007 I think the accountants used by CSA are the same ones that Hollywood uses to show large grossing movies actually loose money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gian-Luca Posted September 17, 2007 Share Posted September 17, 2007 I think I'm more inclined to believe the U20 event director than a random CSA Board Member. It could be that the latter is just saying that they lost money as an attempted justification for turning down the invite to host the women's Olympic qualifying tourney. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
massimo Posted September 17, 2007 Share Posted September 17, 2007 First of all, how is it possible that they still have not made a financial statement? The final was July 22nd!! It is now 2 months minus five days since then. What are they waiting for really? What about regular financial statements don't they do them at the end of every month? Or is it only once a year as it is an assocition and not a company. This is fairly amateur in my opinion. The only way they could have lost money in my opnion, is if tickets were given away, someone stole money from the CSA, or maybe some kind of corruption from within. Anyone up for investigative journalism??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VPjr Posted September 17, 2007 Share Posted September 17, 2007 There is no doubt that something smells here. It's not uncommon for a complex accounting of revenues and costs from a large event like the U20 WC to take a while to finalize but why is the CSA so sure they lost money while Montopoli (who always made public statements that this event was going to be a financial success) is saying that it's too early to make a call. More digging on this story is needed. This might be the type of issue that opens up Pandora's box, so to speak. To get the government involved in helping us bring downt the CSA, we need to show some wrong doing. Is there something the CSA doesn't want Canadian supporters and taxpayers to know? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon Posted September 17, 2007 Share Posted September 17, 2007 It is not unusual that all of the costs and expenditures are not realized for an event as big as the U-20s. There are revenues that may not have been remitted - sponsorship for example, or revenue sharing of monies collected by FIFA as examples. Equally, there may be costs not yet tallied and invoiced related to things like the City of Toronto for security. If attendance exceeded expectations, they may have had to arrange for additional police to be present. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ag futbol Posted September 17, 2007 Share Posted September 17, 2007 quote:Originally posted by Gordon It is not unusual that all of the costs and expenditures are not realized for an event as big as the U-20s. There are revenues that may not have been remitted - sponsorship for example, or revenue sharing of monies collected by FIFA as examples. Equally, there may be costs not yet tallied and invoiced related to things like the City of Toronto for security. If attendance exceeded expectations, they may have had to arrange for additional police to be present. That's definately true they will have some contingent liabilities and revenues, but they should have a pretty strong idea of how they did by now, two months later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
squid2 Posted September 17, 2007 Share Posted September 17, 2007 Far be it for me to defend anything the CSA does, and I’m not expecting any PUBLIC financials from the CSA on the u20s at all – let alone 6-7 weeks. Reasonably, I’d suggest within 6 months. But on a relative note, and in all fairness, Hockey Canada announced their final figures from the 2007 IIHF World Women’s Championships on September 4th 2007. The championships were held in Winnipeg in April of 2007 and these championships also set attendance records. That’s five months. http://www.sirc.ca/news_view.cfm?id=17300&search=&show=&month=9&year=2007&search_where= Mr. Montopoli is a member of the Board of Directors for the Canadian Sport Tourism Alliance - http://www.canadiansporttourism.com/eng_doc.cfm?DocID=6 The Canadian Soccer Association named Mr. Montopoli as event director for the U20s back in 2005. He worked out of the CSA’s offices. He hired the GM’s for each of the host cities/sites. If memory serves correct, I think at one time he mentioned or questioned the numbers that the CSA and FIFA agreed to re: ticket sales, which is where the CSA would derive it’s sole source of revenue from as a result of hosting the u20s. Mr. Montopoli at one time headed the business unit of Skate Canada which “plans, manages, and executes the sponsorship and event management operations of Skate Canada.” Mr. Montopoli is a sports marketing guy. He was heavily involved in basketball at both the Provincial and National levels before taking up with Skate Canada (certainly pre Nykamp at Basketball Canada). He was well respected in Skate Canada circles and achieved some pretty significant milestones while there (10+years). He was at one time, the CEO of The Skating Events Trust fund. So he’s well versed and swimming in familiar waters. Peter Montopoli is a resident of Kanata, Ontario. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JB_Tito Posted September 17, 2007 Share Posted September 17, 2007 quote:Originally posted by Gordon It is not unusual that all of the costs and expenditures are not realized for an event as big as the U-20s. There are revenues that may not have been remitted - sponsorship for example, or revenue sharing of monies collected by FIFA as examples. Equally, there may be costs not yet tallied and invoiced related to things like the City of Toronto for security. If attendance exceeded expectations, they may have had to arrange for additional police to be present. CSA and FIFA hoped they will sell 1/2 million tickets to cover the costs,now suddenly 1.2 million tickets and they don't know if they made any money.WTF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marktci Posted September 17, 2007 Author Share Posted September 17, 2007 Putting aside the issue of timing, if we don't know at this point, then why are two people who should be in the know offering any opinions (let alone divergent ones) about how the tournament did? Either we know (or have a pretty good idea) and can say or we don't and everyone should politely decline to comment. I think that two months later, you should have a pretty good idea (and should be able to estimate everything still to come - you presumably did have agreements for things like sponsorship, security, etc.) but if you don't, why is anyone saying anything? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
squid2 Posted September 17, 2007 Share Posted September 17, 2007 Mr. Montopoli says he set the attendance figure at 520,000 "Montopoli says he set the total ticket-sale target for all six venues -- Burnaby, Victoria, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa -- at 520,000. That equals an average 10,000 tickets for each of the 52 matches. The target reached 350,000 at last count and expect somewhere well past 400,000 to be announced on March 3 when the official draw takes place in Toronto. Imagine that. All those tickets are sold without anyone knowing which teams will be playing in their city." see the Richard Starnes article... http://www.canadian-soccer.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=11359 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ag futbol Posted September 17, 2007 Share Posted September 17, 2007 It should be noted that we're not really looking for financials. Those are official and take time. What we're looking for is some indication on how the event went, which should be in by now. This event in its size absolutely dwarfs the CSA, which is why we should have some kind of figure. If it was some how a big flop, the CSA could need money within weeks to cover its debts. Their only source to get the cash would probably be government or the provincial associations because the credit markets would be about as likely to lend to the CSA right now as a snowball is to go to hell. You always want to leave yourself time to finance your debts as an organization. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
squid2 Posted September 17, 2007 Share Posted September 17, 2007 I'll guess that Mr. Montopoli does indeed know whether the CSA made money or lost money. And I'm pretty sure he's shaking his head in disbelief that old Angus can't keep quiet. And old Angus is one of the few folks at the CSA that doesn't like the position or the optics that he currently finds himself in. All are being personally attacked, their capabilities questioned, etc., etc., and and rightly so, however more than a couple are showing signs of breaking from the ranks of that "Cone of Silence" that blankets the CSA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon Posted September 17, 2007 Share Posted September 17, 2007 quote:Originally posted by ag futbol That's definately true they will have some contingent liabilities and revenues, but they should have a pretty strong idea of how they did by now, two months later. I don't disagree with that, they should know where they stand more or less. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jeffery S. Posted September 17, 2007 Share Posted September 17, 2007 In the end it is better to go a bit into debt and not break even to ensure that the event goes off without a hitch, and that the visitors are happy especially, teams and fans. Because the marketing value of a positive tournament is great and the marketing value lost by not spending, going on the cheap, and being hit for it, is also enormous. I saw two problems that I felt were serious: first were the lineups for tickets already bought at understaffed venues. That was embarassing and bad for our image of a country with logistical capacity. The other was the Chilean incident. The first could have been solved with better use of resources. The second was a more unfortunate incident directly related to the nature of the game played previously. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpg75 Posted September 17, 2007 Share Posted September 17, 2007 The million dollar question is how you go from forecasting 520,000 tickets sold being a break even point to selling 1,195,000 tickets and having rumours of a loss on the event. Seriously, WTF!?!? I think they have some kind of revenue/profit sharing agreement with FIFA right? So could we be currently at a $2M deficit, but waiting for funds to be transfered back from FIFA? But that makes no sense, you'd think the money would flow the other way...beats me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanKeay Posted September 17, 2007 Share Posted September 17, 2007 Actually the thing that mind boggles me and sorry if this is a double post, i havnt heard anything about it. But that canada was offered to host the womens olympic qualifying tournamnet and we turned it down..... Uggg gots to love the csa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marktci Posted September 17, 2007 Author Share Posted September 17, 2007 quote:Originally posted by SeanKeay Actually the thing that mind boggles me and sorry if this is a double post, i havnt heard anything about it. But that canada was offered to host the womens olympic qualifying tournamnet and we turned it down..... Uggg gots to love the csa That's what the bulk of the Globe article is about. They're justifying it because they can't afford to lose the money (having allegedly lost money on the U-20s). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AvroArrow Posted September 18, 2007 Share Posted September 18, 2007 When it rains, it pours. The CSA might as well hang a sign from its front door advertising that "Incompetence Lives Here" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpg75 Posted September 18, 2007 Share Posted September 18, 2007 quote:Originally posted by squid2 Far be it for me to defend anything the CSA does, and I’m not expecting any PUBLIC financials from the CSA on the u20s at all – let alone 6-7 weeks. Reasonably, I’d suggest within 6 months. But on a relative note, and in all fairness, Hockey Canada announced their final figures from the 2007 IIHF World Women’s Championships on September 4th 2007. The championships were held in Winnipeg in April of 2007 and these championships also set attendance records. That’s five months. http://www.sirc.ca/news_view.cfm?id=17300&search=&show=&month=9&year=2007&search_where= Mr. Montopoli is a member of the Board of Directors for the Canadian Sport Tourism Alliance - http://www.canadiansporttourism.com/eng_doc.cfm?DocID=6 The Canadian Soccer Association named Mr. Montopoli as event director for the U20s back in 2005. He worked out of the CSA’s offices. He hired the GM’s for each of the host cities/sites. If memory serves correct, I think at one time he mentioned or questioned the numbers that the CSA and FIFA agreed to re: ticket sales, which is where the CSA would derive it’s sole source of revenue from as a result of hosting the u20s. Mr. Montopoli at one time headed the business unit of Skate Canada which “plans, manages, and executes the sponsorship and event management operations of Skate Canada.” Mr. Montopoli is a sports marketing guy. He was heavily involved in basketball at both the Provincial and National levels before taking up with Skate Canada (certainly pre Nykamp at Basketball Canada). He was well respected in Skate Canada circles and achieved some pretty significant milestones while there (10+years). He was at one time, the CEO of The Skating Events Trust fund. So he’s well versed and swimming in familiar waters. Peter Montopoli is a resident of Kanata, Ontario. Hey squid, do you have the email addresses for sport canada, the minister of sport and the opposition critics for sport? I'm going to fire off some emails...thanks in advance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Ref Posted September 18, 2007 Share Posted September 18, 2007 quote:Originally posted by AvroArrow When it rains, it pours. The CSA might as well hang a sign from its front door advertising that "Incompetence Lives Here" or Have Dummies will travel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gian-Luca Posted September 18, 2007 Share Posted September 18, 2007 Re: the women's tourney, let's be fair folks. The article states that several other Concacaf nations turned down the invite because they all also thought the women's Olympic qualifying tourney would lose them money. Even if you think that Barrett is lying through his teeth about that, the fact that Concacaf are inviting countries to host, instead of having them bid on it, is a telling sign. As I said before this article came out, if the money they save goes into preparation for the men's team for the World Cup, then I'm not too upset with the decision. Perhaps that's not too politically correct, but the fact is we (or most of us) did want the CSA to give priority to the men's team for World Cup Qualifying. Of course, that's always a big "if" when it comes to the CSA. We need to see that 2008 our team is prepared for qualifying better than it has ever been. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vancanman Posted September 18, 2007 Share Posted September 18, 2007 I'm at a loss for words. What can the CSA come up with next? Are they secretly run by that fat oaf from TSN who always goes on about how much he hates footy? I can't remember his name, but his voice is really irritating. Anyway, they seem to go out of their way to kill the game in this country. Why would anyone turn down the opportunity to host a qualifying tournament? HOME PITCH...bloody hell, think you CSA morons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
squid2 Posted September 18, 2007 Share Posted September 18, 2007 quote:Originally posted by jpg75 Hey squid, do you have the email addresses for sport canada, the minister of sport and the opposition critics for sport? I'm going to fire off some emails...thanks in advance. Tom Scrimger is the top dog at Sport Canada. Director General Sport Canada - Canadian Heritage Room 5, 16th Floor 15 Eddy Street Gatineau, QC K1A 0M5 Tel (819) 956-8153 Tom.scrimger@pch.gc.ca Canadian Heritage Ms. Judith A. LaRocque Deputy Minister Les Terrasses de la Chaudière 25 Eddy Street, 3rd Floor Gatineau, Quebec K1A 0M5 Email – perhaps and I’m guessing – judith.larocque@pch.gc.ca Mr. René Bouchard is the Sport guy. He’s the acting ADM - Assistant Deputy Minister, International and Intergovernmental Affairs and Sport. Same address as the DM. rene.bouchard@pch.gc.ca (e-mail was provided as posted) Hon. Helena Guergis, M.P. Secretary of State (Sport) 733 Confederation Building House of Commons Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6 Phone: 613-992-4224 Fax: 613 992-2164 Toll Free 1-866-435-1809 Email: guergh@parl.gc.ca Opposition Critics: (2) Hedy Fry (Liberal) E-Mail: Fry.H@parl.gc.ca House of Commons Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6 Constituency Address 106 - 1030 Denman Street Vancouver, British Columbia V6G 2M6 Telephone: (604) 666-0135 Fax: (604) 666-0114 Luc Malo (Bloc Quebecois) E-Mail: Malo.L@parl.gc.ca Language Preference: French House of Commons Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6 Constituency Address 1085 Lionel-Boulet Boulevard, Suite A Varennes, Quebec J3X 1P7 Telephone: (450) 652-4442 Toll Free: 1-888-652-4442 Fax: (450) 652-4447 Members of the Cabinet, Parliamentary Secretaries and Opposition Party Critics http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Parlinfo/Compilations/HouseOfCommons/MinistryMembers.aspx?Language=E&Menu=Federal Please keep in mind that there is a discussion that is currently ongoing with a third party and Sport Canada's CSA contact. It was initially about the access to information request, seeking clarity, a head's up/courtesy to Sport Canada's staff. And the discussions are ongoing. So far </u> the discussions have been productive in identifying documents that are available, and are not available without resorting to the Request for Information. The Sport Canada contact has been "helpful" but very guarded. I'm certain that a formal request for access to information will in all probability, be utilized. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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