Gerry Gentile's five-step strategic plan

[Ben Knight]

I just posted this in the CEO thread, and realized it really needs to be discussed on its own.

Here are the recommendations Gerry is putting forward -- not necessarily new, but very thorough and well thought-through.

Happy reading!

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The 5 Step Strategic Plan

1. Hire a world class CEO with a brilliant resume of corporate success and a rich knowledge of soccer Sounds like I’m dreaming, however, during my 20 year involvement in youth soccer I have met many top notch executives and CEO’s passionate about the game and with children participating at elite levels. I would look for a CEO thinking of a career change, which is already financially independent and would take the job not for the money but for the challenge.

2. Allow the CEO to assemble his or her own non elected business board to function parallel to the executive board Another committee, another white paper, another resolution, another strategic plan or another $10 million will not change the results we’ve been achieving in Canada until we find a way to attract the business knowledge and resources the CSA requires, without needing them to spend 10 to 20 years getting elected from the club board to the district board and then to the provincial board and eventually the CSA’s board. These highly successful people who want and could help the CSA cannot afford the time required to become elected members of the CSA board, nor will they have the patience to deal with all the nuances of volunteer boards and the bureaucratic way they get things done. We need to recruit experts in marketing, sales, finance, merchandising, facility development, and government lobbying; people with networks of influential contacts which could be leveraged to assist the CSA’s business objectives.

3. Establish a network of 20 low cost national training centers over a five year period. 10 in Western Canada and 10 in Eastern Canada. By building new facilities, by leveraging existing facilities or by a combination of the two, the CSA needs to build a national infrastructure of linked training centers designed to expose our brightest talent at the youngest possible age to best in class coaching and training techniques in best in class facilities and tested with against best in class competition. These centers can be built for $2 million or less and I recommend building them in partnership with high schools across Canada, who can use the facilities by day. This would allow for the eventual coordination of day time training for national youth players encouraged to attend those schools.

4. Hire 20 UEFA “A” licensed international coaches to administer the national player development curriculum at each of the 20 national training centers Replacing Dale Mitchell, one man, with another person, and to expect results to change simply makes no sense and has been proven to be just a short term solution and a long term failure. We need a team of professional international coaches across Canada, not one, to train our brightest young talent 5 days a week. Bonuses should be paid to the staff of training centers when their players sign professional contracts. Each facility’s international technical director would be required to train 20 of the best Canadian apprentice coaches from clubs or academies surrounding the national training center. These apprentices would also be required to scout the areas they serve for new young talent and insure those players are identified and exposed to the national training curriculum. The apprentice coaches would also be required to conduct regular coaching sessions for club and academy youth coaches across each province. With this plan Canada would develop an additional 400 world class coaches in less than 10 years.

5. Establish a fully funded National Amateur Soccer League. Borrowing from the French Association’s example, this league would be restricted to national training center teams, reserve teams from professional clubs or elite leagues (CSL) and youth club and academy programs who meet a high standard of imposed and audited requirements. American teams in close proximity to national training centers who meet the league’s high standards should be admitted as well. Following Houllier’s theory of developing world class youth players so they can play in professional leagues in North America and around the world should be the main goal of the training centers, the international coaches and the National Amateur Soccer League.

[coppercanuck]

Love the ideas Ben. Rather than high schools, could universities be considered? 41 schools across Canada have men's teams, granted some might overlap i.e. Queen's & RMC or Dalhousie & SMU. These facilities would include options for housing. I listened to the Soccer Show recently with you and Gerry and it was a great, positive discussion about moving forward. I like the Nat. Amateur League idea too. If you could get the CIS schools on board and keep those players playing all summer against the Academy's and NTC's, the elite player pool should explode. It really comes down to the people at the top driving this structure.

[ray]

Interesting ideas from Gerry.

I think #5 could be very good for player development and could be the source of major corporate investment. It is a pity this idea of a national amateur (youth) league was not pursued instead of the CUSL professional league which would have required much more money and did not have the support of existing clubs. As I see it the major impediment to these leagues (young men's and women's) going forward would be getting so many existing amateur clubs to buy into the idea where there would be one club team per city (using Canadian Hockey League as a model), except in large cities, where there might be several teams. However, there is enough potential behind the nat. amateur league concept to make it worth exploring as the pinnacle in development for 16-18 year olds.

[Luis_Rancagua]

Here are my ideas Ben. Let's go with Gerry Gentile's proposal of developing an amateur semi-pro league that will allows to develop young talent. Within 12-15 years, we will probably be able to accomplish huge strives. Once we managed to accomplish this task, we should then make the bold move to establish a pro-league in Canada. Again within 12-15 years after we get this semi-pro league off the ground. What do you think????

[Joe Keeper]

Excellent layout gerry. This plan takes into account changes nessesary at the tip and bottom of our development structure.

If somthing like this could be broken down into a full length report with detailings on each point, it would make the CSA's "Strategic Plan" look like a connect the dots on a childerns activity place mat.

While all of these may just be specific peoples theories on how to fix soccer in Canada, it really gives me hope that more and more people are starting to think critically about what to do.

The more people we have theoryorizing, the more pressure the CSA will be under to adopt an accountable and proffesional national structure.

[Guest Ed]

Re points 3 & 4: Any reliance on the CSA to produce players throught the NTC's is delusional. Having 16 yr olds scrimmage against 12 yr olds tells the whole story.

Leave the development (for the men anyway) to the pro teams. Keep the amateurs from the CSA and the provincial asshats as far away from talented players as possible.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

You need 3 & 4 for the person described in 1 as a world class CEO with a brilliant resume of corporate success and a rich knowledge of soccer (i.e. Gentile himself ) to be able to build up his little empire. In reality, what we need are a network of MLS, USL-D1, PDL and elite youth clubs doing this stuff autonomously without a parasitical layer of CSA bureacrats using it as a gravy train and a source of patronage.

[Canuck Oranje]

IMHO, the most important key to restructuring soccer in Canada is accountability. Currently, there is none or at least, so laundered that people at the bottom of the pyramid don't see any. Also, I feel that fans and supporters somehow have to be engaged somewhere in the system locally.

As a first step, I would challenge all elite amateur clubs to review their constitutions and amend as necessary so that fans and supporters can become members of their clubs (while maintaining their obligations to delivering their current programs). The intent would be to expand the reach of these clubs rather than change them.

The second step is to begin the process to push the CSA to offer a facilitiy for direct membership of these elite clubs.

I am convinced that professionalization of player development of these clubs would happen as a natural extension. There are examples of clubs without professional teams in Brazil that successfully competed against the biggest professional clubs at youth level (they since have entered professional teams in professional leagues). In fact, local clubs would then resemble more closely European and Latin American clubs.

Once the CSA is held accountable to all stakeholders, much better management and subsequently results will follow. Change has be bottom-up rather than top-down.

[Canuck Oranje]

BTW, professionalization of player development means that clubs regardless of whether they compete at the professional level or amateur level must be able to realize on the financial benefit from the players they develop (ie. a trading system of player rights needs to be established). The rules should not distinguish between professional clubs and amateur clubs.