Expansion in CSL is ever coming?

[Vic]

Using Australia as an example is incredibly ironic - they have a national league which mitigates the need for a second one. The NHL is more American every day and few people I know enjoy it and wouldn't roll it back north of Bettman. Not surprised you went there and not the CFL.

[ted]

The PCSL does not need to be taken over or answer to the CSL. I believe most pro-CSLers on here, including myself, just want to see a standardized level of play across the country. If the PCSL were to work towards CSA D3 sanctioning, I would be happy with that. Where CSL expansion comes in is areas of the country that do not have a league of that level.

Thank you. This is the most sensible and positive way forward for the CSL. The goal should be meaningful expansion or creation of legitimate D3 leagues across the country.

[Eric]

I'll be interested to see if anyone can address Richard's point about what the CSL actually has to offer to PCSL clubs although his point about an 80 year history is a bit misleading given the current PCSL only dates back to 1995 and the VMSL also has a claim to the legacy of the PCSL that existed from 1930 to 1973. Can a league office operating out of the GTA really do a better job of dealing with the BC media and local sponsors than people based in lower mainland BC have been able to do in past? Is there any actual benefit to flying to the GTA for a set of end of season playoffs that are unlikely to receive significant mainstream media attention? If they don't do it in Australia why is there a need to do it in a Canadian context?

The CSL should not even care about the existence of the PCSL, they are an amateur league and they should stay like that for ever just like Richard and his never ending jealousy towards the CSL. He should stick to amateur soccer and not stand in the way of progress, like when he call, wrote and sent smoke signals to the FIFA to get the CSL schedule out of their website. Guys like him is what Canadian soccer needs to get rid of once and for all.

Highlighted are U-20 national team players who had their first experience playing at the senior level thanks to the CSL:

GK- Julien Latendresse Lévesque | GER / Energie Cottbus (on loan)

GK- Jordan Santiago | ENG / Cardiff City FC

CB- Derrick Bassi | CAN / Simon Fraser University

D- Francesco Augustin | CAN / Académie Impact Montréal

D- Daniel Di Biagio | USA / Winthrop University

D- Doneil Henry | CAN / Toronto FC Academy

D- Dominic Roberts | USA / Southern New Hampshire University

D- Roger Thompson | USA / University of Concinnati

D/M- Ashtone Morgan | CAN / Toronto FC Academy

D/M- Chris Suta | CAN / Milltown FC

M- Ethan Gage | CAN / Vancouver Whitecaps FC

M- Nicholas Lindsay | CAN / Toronto FC Academy

M- Jonathan Osorio | CAN / Clarkson Sheridan

M- Matthew Stinson | USA / Winthrop University

M- Russell Teibert | CAN / Vancouver Whitecaps FC

F- Jerome Baker | CAN / Vancouver Whitecaps FC

F- Niall Cousens | CZE / Slavia Praha

F- Massimo Mirabelli | CAN / Portugal FC

now please can somebody tell me how many players had the PCSL contribute with to the national program? maybe Richard the PCSL guru can answer that....

[bettermirror]

PCSL is a summer league for the VMSL/VISL. It's amateur from top to bottom. The coaches might get paid, I assume, at the top level of the league, but in reality it's just good fun. An example being the ACBC side has a massive roster to accomodate their Premier and Division 2 teams from the winter. They chop and change their line-up based on player availability regardless if they are premier or division 2. The premier and div 2 sides (now div 1) play Fraser Valley Soccer League in the winter.

Until BC switches to a focus on summer leagues over winter leagues the PCSL doesn't stand a chance matching the CSL. The u21 division of the PCSL is an example. It's good enough for what it is. But the standard of play isn't anywhere near the level needed to supply or prep players for national team duty. Not even close.

I believe the CSL should expand. It should bring in the Maritimes, Quebec, and Manitoba/Saskatchewan. Alberta and BC should then be asked to step-up and match - not necessarily link-up - but match the standard of the CSL and get the D3 standing.

[Juby]

few things to say, 1 is pcsl has done some good things for developement (isn't haber and some other whitecaps kids play in pcsl?) so don't sell it short but to address richards question, the advantage is that when all sorts of regional leagues are in place and a decent national division takes shape, any pcsl team that thought it could be successfull stepping up could do so (maybe just one or two teams, but thats one or two teams playing at a better level then they were)

if anyone with money came along with money and wanted to build a squad, he could start in the pcsl (I'm guessing promotion would based meeting certain standards and then playing in a national tourney (below the national division) probaly in one city for like a week, so if your interested in moving up, you win your area, accept the tourney invite, pass standards and win, not easy but theirs a route from just about anywhere if your a serious club)

to bbtb,

I don't like your australia example at all, what other country's league is australia in? New zealands in their league, in a situation like us but we can't really compare ourselves to them because were not just a much bigger country then them, were a bigger country then australia(their usa) too.

They got together and made a proper top division to replace whatever they came up with before that. Were trying to come up with a good developement structure that has our guys playing at much better level then pdl and for more then 4 months, a place to develope players, a place to start out, hell a place to languish (better there then nowhere and the better the league, the better it is for the youngsters I think). Were not really coming up with a 'national division' cause the big leagues above it are fine, but just cause thats cool doesn't mean we shouldn't try to the best we can below that.

this may be a more realistic goal but if the usl second division makes multiple confrences (and it's not a bad level of play) and we had a seperate csl that hopefully got its level above that but probably still below the uslnasl division then mission accomplished, we have a few factors going for us, support is mildly ahead (and a ticket for say calgary might just sell better in quebec then harrisburg, despite how 'international' playing 'harrisburg' must seem). If they had 2 or 3 or even 4 second divisions eventually, and we had 1, mission accomplished, I don't wanna oversimplify things but if were at a figure better then 10% of the usa(cause were 1/10 the population) then were in line for a pat on the back.

I'm getting ahead of myself but imagine a guy in the states in the future who saw getting signed in a csl as a step up, obviously not up to the uslnasl thing but up, It's possible, and if we keep our slightly higher interest internal at this level rather then use it to be a strong point in american regional divisions maybe it will be more successful (and I firmly believe if it's a good level of play, it will do better (not alot) then that level of play in the states).

Also I don;t think cross canada travel is all that much more expensive if your talking about joining anything above pdl in the states (even with a western conference, I don't imagine it costs much more to get across canada then going to say texas, probably still more but I doubt it's horribly more expensive (and it's a cheaper median between the potential conference and uslnasl).

all I'm saying is that if we turned our developement below uslnasl into a pyramid, maybe the league at the top could sell a couple thousand tickets a game(I'm probably more optimistic then most that a good level of play would be rewarded), set up some decent sponsors and club links, and pay it's players a small but full time wage then hopefully the whole thing might be financially viable (I think their needs to be some sort of pro/rel system in place to let people with money in and let failing clubs slip away to a level they can maintain themselves at) and we would have a better place for our youngsters to play and develope, a place for late bloomer and your fair share of decent to mediocre players a chance to work it out. I'm not advocating horrible extravagance, i just want to get into place the most successful developement structure our market will sustain...and improve whats on tv.

[ted]

...Richard and his never ending jealousy towards the CSL.

Why is it that reasonable and consistent opinions bring out the mindless ad hominem attacks? I don't agree with Richard all the time either but you don't need to be a jerk about it.

... now please can somebody tell me how many players had the PCSL contribute with to the national program? maybe Richard the PCSL guru can answer that....

I enjoyed watching Josh Simpson play for a couple of years with Victoria United for one.

Getting back to the actual point of all this: we need more spaces at D3 level. If the PCSL or PDL or any other league can provide that for regions without current teams so much the better.

Frankly I cannot see how it would be beneficial for the CSL to try to organize and run a national D3 league. At best the 3-4 regional leagues that make sense for Canada's geography should have some sort of cup competition at the end of the season. What possible benefit comes from a league that cannot and will not be truly national? At the D3 level there is no way that Victoria could play St. John's in a regular-season game in a national league.

All the chest-thumping patriotic feeling in the world will not change that fact. Neither will it change the fact that development of players at a D3 level would not be significantly improved with a national league over 3-4 regional ones. At least I don't see any logical basis for such thinking.

[L.T.]

ted, just curious - has their been any local impetus at all to develop D3 professional soccer in BC?

I agree that the previous approach by the CSL was flawed, so do most people on here, so let's look forward. The difference between a national D3 league and 3-4 regional ones is semantics. Either way, the competition would be predominantly regional-based. Some of the BC guys seem to have an issue with the fact the idea is being pushed by the CSL - but if not them, who? The CSA? They have shown time and time again that they don't have the will, expertise or financial savvy to but together a national league at any level. The provinces? OSA/BCSA have been tripping over themselves trying to align with TFC & the Whitecaps, why would they jeopardize these incestuous relationships by promoting anything that would seem like competition?

It's time for someone to step up. We have groups popping up (i.e. the Highlanders, CSL & its recent expansion, NASL expansion interest) that are trying, but we need to reach critical mass to form a stable structure that will stand the test of time...

[Juby]

it's very easy, instead of having a couple dec semi pro amateur teams and a summer league for pdl, maybe we can get 12 to 20 people or groups together who can maintain a low level professional league, obviously toronto and bc can't do alone, but they probably can make a few clubs, and instead of playing against even weaker opponents, let them play against the best competition we can muster cross country and maybe they can get a couple thousand supporters, a few decent sponsors (call up greyhound if you have to, sell everything from the league name on) and maybe (I can't say this is true) it will be financially viable then poof, theirs 400 roster spots, where our young players, whether they deserve it or not will have a chance to play at a higher level then now (whereas now their's like maybe 100 real pro soccer contracts in canada, like half used by non canadians, because apparently, that's all we need, part time and summer league developement has done us so wonderfully so far, I shouldn't be so insulting because thank god it's their because it's better then nothing but don't you think the system were using isn't even close to successful considering were a big country, or remotely rational (I mean 2 general regions represented, 3 completely seperate leagues, ones a summer league I'd call it a patch work blanket if it didn't resemble patches getting in the way of that nothing more then the making a blanket.

It's ridiculously simple, it's so simple people use it for scams, it's a pyramid, teams with resources move up, teams over reaching go down, good players go up, unimpressing players go down, the quality and the financial support is focused at the top where it will get the most use, honestly, let's say your team in the pcsl is the only team with actual financial backing, so your players are the best in the division, would you rather watch them play inferior teams or play other real teams? I can't guarentee it will sell enough but it will probably sell better (getting it on tv would probably be a huge help, if like I said, the level of play has risen decently)

this is kinda dickish but it's not that difficult, if we take the current csl and took the 4 or 5 best clubs, then take 2 or 3 from the pcsl, right there you have a better league then both the csl and pcsl, of course that general idea is stupid because it makes no sense for a pcsl team to join until alberta, saskatchewan and manitoba help make it a real league with a decent amount of teams with fair travel (ie, you don't spend half your away schedual in toronto). So let's get csl leagues up all over the place, even if it starts provincially, then take the clubs that are good and stable and put them in a regional league with other good and stable teams, and then finally see if you have 12 -20 (just a few from each region, not every amateur team you've ever seen) strong clubs that either can or would want to take a chance on playing in a better league (nation wide) because they think their fan support will increase and then all that focusing has players, who are currently in regional leagues or not playing or playing for 4 months a year, playing in a better league.

just to explain what I mean by increased support, lemme explain, two hypotheticals: hypotheticalnow and hypotheticalnotstupid

hypotheticalnow, you live in winnipeg, you cheer for one of the big 3, in winnipeg your local teams aren't the greatest and amateur, do you care? probably not.

hypotheticalnotstupid, you live in winnipeg, you cheer for one the big 3, there's a decent pro team in the area you've seen on tv a couple times, the pegcity peggernaughts (was trying to think of the worst name possible), do you go, probably a few times over the years,

your local community in winnipeg has an amateur team (pretty much the same amateur team that exists now) at the bottom of the pyramid but it's in the pyramid at a very regionalized level, do you go? I'd like to think your slightly more likely (so even at the very bottom you might have a bump from like 25 to 75 spectators) and when you become a parent, if your living vicariously through your kid (hopefully not too much) that will probably be the place they start their potential professional career so you probably will go to check it out, and instead of being a pointless amateur team, it's just the unfortunate club at the bottom of the pyramid waiting for the talent or money to turn it's luck around.

All these seperate leagues do is erode everybody's legitimacy, I'm advocating a system where the most legitimate clubs rise up to most legitimate level they can, and all the other clubs may be small but their connected to the legitimacy of the top because their in the pyramid, rather then being small and unconnected and therefore in the eyes of many, pretty much pointless

[Juby]

but we need to reach critical mass to form a stable structure that will stand the test of time...

exactly, I'm reminded of the old question of whats cheaper: making a new customer or keeping one, the answer is keeping one, were not going to get anywhere rebranding all the damn time, we need a stable league (I say pyramid setup) that takes advantage of all the major regions and then make it as good as we can without comprimising it's sustainability. If it's only around the usl second division level of play, cry me a river, that's a whole league at that level of play that doesn't exist now, generally meant for our players.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

I'm not going to pursue the whole angle of Canadian clubs shouldn't be in American leagues as I see that argument as a complete red herring. Here's a few random thoughts beyond that. I think Alex D is wrong to completely dismiss the benefits of PDL. How else would you manage to put a soccer team into Thunder Bay that people will pay to watch? PDL copies one of Canada's great success stories in player development terms (i.e. junior hockey) by using student athletes to create viable leagues in far flung communities that are too small to sustain fully pro teams and two far apart for open age semi-pro to be a viable option. It should be part of the mix going forward, in my opinion. I think the USSF's division two level will sort itself out by becoming aligned with the plans that MLS have for a reserve division and that we'll see second division franchises with ongoing affiliation agreements to MLS along the same lines as AAA baseball and the AHL. A recent It's Called Football interview with a journalist from Minnesota outlined what could happen in that regard. The new Hamilton team would be the perfect place for TFC to loan out a few players from that standpoint, while Ottawa would be a good fit for Montreal. Not sure whether Edmonton or Victoria would work best for the Whitecaps out west but there definitely appeared to be reports that FC Edmonton would fulfill that sort of role when the franchise was first rumoured to be emerging.

Beyond that what I've always tended to hear from people who have played soccer at an elite level in both lower mainland BC and southern Ontario (admittedly a fairly small group of people is involved here) is that Vancouver's soccer scene is stronger than Toronto's because of the ability to play year round. Think some people are too quick to dismiss the quality of leagues like the VMSL relative to the CSL because the former opts to be amateur so its clubs can compete in the national championship. From what I understand the PCSL isn't the strongest league in BC because a lot of the best players give it a miss due to all the travel that is involved and focus exclusively on the winter club level leagues, which would greatly complicate any attempt at national coordination. It's worth bearing in mind that a lot of Vancouver Whitecaps players have played in the VMSL in the winter months in years past (TFC's Nick Dasovic played in it a few years back for example) in a way that can't happen in Ontario where leagues like USSF-D2 coincide with the CSL and elite amateur leagues like the OSL in scheduling terms. Worth noting maybe that Kevin Harmse got a national team call up from Holger Osieck while playing for a VMSL team so the CSL's ability to have players called up to national teams is nothing new or unique.

[Soccerpro]

I'm not going to pursue the whole angle of Canadian clubs shouldn't be in American leagues as I see that argument as a complete red herring. Here's a few random thoughts beyond that. I think Alex D is wrong to completely dismiss the benefits of PDL. How else would you manage to put a soccer team into Thunder Bay that people will pay to watch? PDL copies one of Canada's great success stories in player development terms (i.e. junior hockey) by using student athletes to create viable leagues in far flung communities that are too small to sustain fully pro teams and two far apart for open age semi-pro to be a viable option. It should be part of the mix going forward, in my opinion. I think the USSF's division two level will sort itself out by becoming aligned with the plans that MLS have for a reserve division and that we'll see second division franchises with ongoing affiliation agreements to MLS along the same lines as AAA baseball and the AHL. A recent It's Called Football interview with a journalist from Minnesota outlined what could happen in that regard. The new Hamilton team would be the perfect place for TFC to loan out a few players from that standpoint, while Ottawa would be a good fit for Montreal. Not sure whether Edmonton or Victoria would work best for the Whitecaps out west but there definitely appeared to be reports that FC Edmonton would fulfill that sort of role when the franchise was first rumoured to be emerging.

Beyond that what I've always tended to hear from people who have played soccer at an elite level in both lower mainland BC and southern Ontario (admittedly a fairly small group of people is involved here) is that Vancouver's soccer scene is stronger than Toronto's because of the ability to play year round. Think some people are too quick to dismiss the quality of leagues like the VMSL relative to the CSL because the former opts to be amateur so its clubs can compete in the national championship. From what I understand the PCSL isn't the strongest league in BC because a lot of the best players give it a miss due to all the travel that is involved and focus exclusively on the winter club level leagues, which would greatly complicate any attempt at national coordination. It's worth bearing in mind that a lot of Vancouver Whitecaps players have played in the VMSL in the winter months in years past (TFC's Nick Dasovic played in it a few years back for example). Think Kevin Harmse even got a national team from Holger Osieck while playing for a VMSL team.

+1

[Alex D]

BBTB, couple random thoughts:

-Thunder Bay gets an asterisk for PDL because they are so damn close to nothing.

-PDL is nothing like junior hockey. The CHL plays a 70+ game season with playoffs and a national championship. The league is also home to the best U20 hockey players in the world. PDL has an 18 match season with a short playoff for the championship, and is home to a bunch of U23 college players trying not to get hurt and jeopardize their scholarships.

-Thunder Bay has 7 Canadians on their 23 man roster

-In the future, travel will become less of an issue for the CSL. It has been shown this year that there are two ways to win, spend like crazy on some eastern Europeans, or bring on some young Canadians with the dedication to train 4 times a week and travel. The smart shift would be towards youth.

-The VMSL opts to stay amateur so they can compete in the national championship, but there is no need for a D3 national championship?

-PDL also has a national (continental actually) championship, but that's ok. The Aussie state leagues are happy with out it, so we should be too.

[Alex D]

We should just close this thread, as all it will result in is a few more pages of bickering. We should archive this thing like a time capsule and reopen it in a decade.

Or we could meet at the Peru match and settle this like men, over a pint.

[Juby]

I'm not going to pursue the whole angle of Canadian clubs shouldn't be in American leagues as I see that argument as a complete red herring. Here's a few random thoughts beyond that. I think Alex D is wrong to completely dismiss the benefits of PDL. How else would you manage to put a soccer team into Thunder Bay that people will pay to watch? PDL copies one of Canada's great success stories in player development terms (i.e. junior hockey) by using student athletes to create viable leagues in far flung communities that are too small to sustain fully pro teams and two far apart for open age semi-pro to be a viable option. It should be part of the mix going forward, in my opinion. I think the USSF's division two level will sort itself out by becoming aligned with the plans that MLS have for a reserve division and that we'll see second division franchises with ongoing affiliation agreements to MLS along the same lines as AAA baseball and the AHL. A recent It's Called Football interview with a journalist from Minnesota outlined what could happen in that regard. The new Hamilton team would be the perfect place for TFC to loan out a few players from that standpoint, while Ottawa would be a good fit for Montreal. Not sure whether Edmonton or Victoria would work best for the Whitecaps out west but there definitely appeared to be reports that FC Edmonton would fulfill that sort of role when the franchise was first rumoured to be emerging.

Beyond that what I've always tended to hear from people who have played soccer at an elite level in both lower mainland BC and southern Ontario (admittedly a fairly small group of people is involved here) is that Vancouver's soccer scene is stronger than Toronto's because of the ability to play year round. Think some people are too quick to dismiss the quality of leagues like the VMSL relative to the CSL because the former opts to be amateur so its clubs can compete in the national championship. From what I understand the PCSL isn't the strongest league in BC because a lot of the best players give it a miss due to all the travel that is involved and focus exclusively on the winter club level leagues, which would greatly complicate any attempt at national coordination. It's worth bearing in mind that a lot of Vancouver Whitecaps players have played in the VMSL in the winter months in years past (TFC's Nick Dasovic played in it a few years back for example) in a way that can't happen in Ontario where leagues like USSF-D2 coincide with the CSL and elite amateur leagues like the OSL in scheduling terms. Worth noting maybe that Kevin Harmse got a national team call up from Holger Osieck while playing for a VMSL team so the CSL's ability to have players called up to national teams is nothing new or unique.

???your the one who's clearly not reading???

No one ever said canadians shouldn't play in american leagues, like 20 times people have tried to explain to you no one has any problems with working with american leagues. Were saying replace the pdl, which is not as successful as your pretending? It put a 4 month team in thunder bay? WOW, I'm so impressed, who cares that theirs no soccer in a city much bigger a few hundred km away (winnipeg) but since they found a niche in a small market they must be apart of a s great structure right? No, not at all, and before I get into that, your idea is to have the 3 biggest markets use the next 3 biggest as feeder markets and then give the american summer league responsibility for developing our kids, now when our team doesn't make it, who do we complain to, the csa or the americans?

It's just wrong for you to go out and pidgeon hole a bunch of communities like, if I still lived in ottawa and you wanted a new ottawa team to become a feeder team for the impact, I'd tell you to go to hell, make your own team to be someone's greet buddy. What I'm advocating, is sure, see how many mls usl franchises take root, and then setup a developement league below that and see where the peices land (ie whether communities get into it or let it sink to the bottom instead of telling people with their own ambitions what their goals are).

Honestly, the pdl is just a flawed idea, you went on for a whole paragraph about how great bc soccer is because it can be all year round and then you also advocate the pdl system despite the fact that around the halfway point now in the csl, it's ALMOST OVER. seriously 4 months is stupid, a real player will spend a month or 2 in preseason, like 6-7-8 months playing, and then a couple months vacation, usually the player will report back a little out of shape but sometimes a small break can help reignite their footie brains and helps. That possible advantage doesn't exist in the pdl unless the player themselves devote their own time/energy/money keeping themselves playing all year, after being off for 8 months, maybe playing at school (where you also have to do this little thing called homework cause your not a star, your in the pdl) where do you expect that player to be come the next season. Honestly, probably in decline they can probably work hard and be better at the end but it's a piss poor training setup (it's exactly like the idea of having school 4 months a year, kids will learn a bit on their own but generally they'll forget almost everything you teach them when the new school year comes around). The only reason a 'piss poor' training system, survives, and convinces people like yourself it's wonderful is cause like I said earlier (if you'd read) it's better then nothing.

Why don't you grow just a teency bit of ambition, Instead of setting everything up to surround 3 teams (why your so convinced this is a magic number is beyond me) and hoping the americans let us in their crappy developement system.

I'm gonna try and explain it as basically as I can, if you still don't get I gotta say I think your just being difficult for fun:

MLS

USLNASL

CSL(nat) USL 2 (conf)

CSL(reg) USL PDL

further whatever they want

regionals

I know your scared enough fans won't show up, but you know we 9 cities with more then half a million people (but apparently we should just put a pdl team in these areas cause it was such a success in thunder bay and vicoria ( sarcasm). you know how we could get a team into thunder bay? have a team in winnipeg and ottawa, I don't know about you but I'd rather watch ottawa play then springfield. If the fans don't show, thunder bay gets relegated and is regionalized (and it's no worse off then it is now except if enough the fans eventually start showing up, it's got a path to the top. This whole system I'm advocating is about finding out what each market can do, not just saying: can you do this(usl)? no? well then your only option is to do this (pdl), you think you can do better then that? too bad.

Like look at this damn country, Toronto (fans or no, toronto clubs could probably afford 2-3 of these low level professional clubs, some teams get a few hundred fans, is it so unrealistic to think that in a better, national league they might be able to bring in a couple thousand people ( I can't guareentee it but it's not like I'm living in a dream world) then their's Montreal, Vancouver and Ottawa, let's say for a second these 4 cities contributed 8 teams, now heres the fun part, victoria, edmonton, calgary, saskatoon or regina, winnipeg, london, hamilton, quebec city, halifax, I just named some of the more obvious large markets, all these cities have at least a quarter million people (all bigger than thunder bay, some more isolated to) a few lack competiting leagues from other sports(usually the smaller cities), is it really so difficult to expect that maybe these communities can support a very low level but pro and full time team?

Now i'm not nearly done though, cause lets say, despite the wisdom involved in me spewing out city names, let's say either the victoria, saskatchewan or halifax team wasn't do so well, you don't want an uniterested team dragging your league down, and that's were all these regional csl's I've been advocating come up, let's say you find out soccer won't take on in halifax yet but the maritime division st john's is proving very successful, well just relegate halifax to the maritime region until support grows (rather then just through away the club making it like 20 times harder to try again (it's alot easier to promote a team then convince people a brand new team isn't totally lame, here's 2 examples, after a few years of obscure a play, the owner of the team goes, hey remember the halifax blah blah blah, their playing their hearts out and could earn promotion so come on out and watch a game, or example two, REMEMBER SOCCER? I'm making a new team, called the Halifax so and so's, who's with me!...(crickets), It worked in Toronto (the WE GOTTA TEAM approach) but I doubt it's a model to follow.)

got distracted- anyway, you releagte halifax till it's good and therefore still have a team for people in halifax to try and make instead of just giving up (so what if it doesn't sell 2000 tickets, that doesn't mean give up, that means do the best you can with the fans you have instead doing something completely moronic like giving up, gee whiz, I can't think of any number between nothin and 2 000 so I guess theirs no point in doing anything if your not there.) and you promote st john's, you keep doing this until you have a decent mix (and by then support for soccer in general will be a little higher) of well supported teams near the top.

I feel like there's no point in continueing to type, you may not believe me but I'm actually making alot of sense, it just takes me a while to explain things, especially when people avoid using their brains to win an arguement. The whole arguement is really simple, pdl is only better then nothing, let's make a developement league thats as good as we can get it without going broke, why? DEVELOPMENT, TO MAKE A DAMNED WORLD CUP, were probably not going to get their giving up the moment it doesn't look like we can get a usl- franchise (and let's not forget your suggesting that the owners of these usl teams should give up their ambitions to be a feeder club for some other twats ambition because he happens to live montreal vancouver or toronto, bravo) or instead of hoping for anything better (you know between pdl and usl 1) they should just give up and be happy with a summer league team students and amateur and a few semi pro's? the only reason the pdl is seen as good in the usa is because it puts a crumb, just a crumb of order in a country with 300 million people!? Does anyone here think the current pdl system comes even close to capturing the americans potential (their getting good but they still god a tonne of space to the roof), so why would we accept their ad hoc solution for a completely different country when its barely even working there, the only reason they like it is cause it's better then nothing, and if thats what you expect from life, get an imagination I guess would be the best advice.

I mean what possible advantage could a few hundred pro contracts at a good level of play do (sarcasm, if you can't see it, good god)

Edit: I get carried away sometimes, I'll try and back away a let rebutts go (even if their redundant) now

[Eric]

BBTB, couple random thoughts:

-Thunder Bay gets an asterisk for PDL because they are so damn close to nothing.

-PDL is nothing like junior hockey. The CHL plays a 70+ game season with playoffs and a national championship. The league is also home to the best U20 hockey players in the world. PDL has an 18 match season with a short playoff for the championship, and is home to a bunch of U23 college players trying not to get hurt and jeopardize their scholarships.

-Thunder Bay has 7 Canadians on their 23 man roster

-In the future, travel will become less of an issue for the CSL. It has been shown this year that there are two ways to win, spend like crazy on some eastern Europeans, or bring on some young Canadians with the dedication to train 4 times a week and travel. The smart shift would be towards youth.

-The VMSL opts to stay amateur so they can compete in the national championship, but there is no need for a D3 national championship?

-PDL also has a national (continental actually) championship, but that's ok. The Aussie state leagues are happy with out it, so we should be too.

+1

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

So Alex D wants to end the thread while having the last word. I won't be able to be at the Peru game so the pint thing won't work in my case. Not going to bother with the comments about PDL and CSL but suffice to say I disagree that there is no parallel with junior hockey and that the travel issues faced by the CSL have suddenly been resolved.

What I would like to point out, however, is that in this thread I have used the Australian example to demonstrate that there is no necessity for national organization in league terms in a federal continental scale country for semi-pro leagues to operate successfully and develop players for pro level teams. That's a separate issue from the desirability or otherwise of having of national championship based on a cup competition. There are many serious issues with the CSA's national championships connected to having to use a single location (to keep travel costs as low as possible) and needing to cram as many games as possible one after another at a single venue on consecutive days (to reduce time away from work to a minimum) that have prevented it from making much of an impact on the sporting landscape but that's a topic for another thread.

I'll also point out beyond that that I have consistently argued that the distinction made between semi-pro and amateur competition is an anachronism that should be dispensed with and that what is really needed is a conventional promotion and relegation approach to the leagues centred on each major city with the decision on whether or not to pay players being an internal one for each club. I fundamentally disagree with the whole concept of there being a D3 that is a completely separate tier of the sport from leagues like the OSL in other words.

I'll invite Juby to read the following from Vic as an example of why I see an agenda of being opposed to participation in American leagues creeping into this thread:

You prefer PDL, NCAA, USL, NASL and MLS. I prefer Provincial YSL's, CIS, and any attempt at national soccer development. Foreign leagues are governed in their best interests. Whether it's international caps on Canadians, mandated American roster spots, failure to release Canadians for international duty, whatever. I live in Canada and belong to a Canadian supporters group. I don't support any type of capitulation - government, economic or athletic.

Nothing more to add really beyond pointing out that it's easy enough to ramble on about what you'd like to see happen in an ideal world. Other people prefer to deal with the world as it actually is. A pyramid style setup is easy to develop in small European countries where travel distances are short. In the absence of full-time professionalism being viable down to the provincial league sort of level it's not going to suddenly be wished into existence in a relatively sparsely populated country like Canada that is continental in scale. It would have long since happened by now if were doable.

[Vic]

A Canadian agenda? In a Canadian supporters forum? How ghastly. Someone who doesn't appreciate American mandated-players on Canadian pro teams and Canadian player embargos? How appalling.

For the second time - your Australian example is BS. They have a national league, otherwise their secondary league would be national. Virtually every single country in the world has a national league, and you could come up with 100 reasons why 100 of them can't have one.

You may live in the real world, but look at the calendar on the wall and check the date. It's not 1985 any longer. The game has grown exponentially many times since then.

We don't have a nationally connected infrastructure beyond ridiculous amateur provincial lines. I don't call that a healthy national system.

[Juby]

So Alex D wants to end the thread while having the last word. I won't be able to be at the Peru game so the pint thing won't work in my case. Not going to bother with the comments about PDL and CSL but suffice to say I disagree that there is no parallel with junior hockey and that the travel issues faced by the CSL have suddenly been resolved.

What I would like to point out, however, is that in this thread I have used the Australian example to demonstrate that there is no necessity for national organization in league terms in a federal continental scale country for semi-pro leagues to operate successfully and develop players for pro level teams. That's a separate issue from the desirability or otherwise of having of national championship based on a cup competition. There are many serious issues with the CSA's national championships connected to having to use a single location (to keep travel costs as low as possible) and needing to cram as many games as possible one after another at a single venue on consecutive days (to reduce time away from work to a minimum) that have prevented it from making much of an impact on the sporting landscape but that's a topic for another thread.

I'll also point out beyond that that I have consistently argued that the distinction made between semi-pro and amateur competition is an anachronism that should be dispensed with and that what is really needed is a conventional promotion and relegation approach to the leagues centred on each major city with the decision on whether or not to pay players being an internal one for each club. I fundamentally disagree with the whole concept of there being a D3 that is a completely separate tier of the sport from leagues like the OSL in other words.

I'll invite Juby to read the following from Vic as an example of why I see an agenda of being opposed to participation in American leagues creeping into this thread:

Nothing more to add really beyond pointing out that it's easy enough to ramble on about what you'd like to see happen in an ideal world. Other people prefer to deal with the world as it actually is. A pyramid style setup is easy to develop in small European countries where travel distances are short. In the absence of full-time professionalism being viable down to the provincial league sort of level it's not going to suddenly be wished into existence in a relatively sparsely populated country like Canada that is continental in scale. It would have long since happened by now if were doable.

I tried to shut up but then you posted a page of utter nonsense with an attitude that you actually know what your talking about.

first off, the australia example, just stupid, their a country of 20 million that already has it's own top flight pro league with like 10 pro clubs, We are a country of 30 million with 3 top flight pro clubs in someone elses league. Your comparison makes no sense, not even to what were talking about (putting a low level pro league for canada below a couple leagues compared to creating a pro league for themselves, maybe australia's infrastructure suffers after the a-league because they've fully saturated their market, we have 3 clubs for more people, it doesn't look like were getting more mls clubs, maybe we can support 10-20 teams below that, maybe they can't afford to go to puerto rico but maybe they can get across canada a few times a year and if they can. do it instead of being a naysaying little whiner.)

Your championships mention makes little sense either, the only mention I had of a tourney was a small tourney for promotion to the top flight, and if your trying to promote to a league with cross canada travel you'll probably get the money together first, and if you can't, you wouldn't be making all these plans, odds are you can't compete with your richer division mates and probably didn't win anything to get there. You just brazzenly said, DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT WOULD BE TO HAVE A BIG FA CUP HERE? which would make sense if ANYONE WAS TALKING ABOUT THAT.

So you disagree with, you know, THE DEFINITIONS of amateur and semi pro, good for you and good luck with that. cause I'm pretty sure your just talking **** I'll explain it, a semi professional team has their players and staff CONTRACTUALLY OBLIGATED, sure it's silly to make a contract for a couple grand a year but then that player is CONTRACTUALLY OBLIGATED to show up to everything from events to practise, another team can't just come along and steal the player because their UNDER CONTRACT. The cheque is small but can help the player get by on a part time job (giving them more time to train).

Amateurs don't get paid, If you don't want to play with your amateur club one day and are so uncomfertable about skipping so you never return, no one can do any more then yell at you, How many amateur teams require THE PLAYERS TO PAY, that's a solid way of developing players, fitting your hockey example, if in hockey you don't dazzle quickly and don't get sponsored to a better team, it's not over, you just have to have a few grand lieing around as a teenager to join the team (and who doesn't have 1000's of $ lieing around).

There alot between semi pro and amateur and you choosing not to acknowledge them changes jack ****, it just further illustrates that your too much of a lazy pessimist to even see the differences around the ground up.

even your sarcasm is full of ****, wishing it into existance? I explained, how many times, make local csl's, and then see if theirs 12-20 teams, you know teams that would then have a history, not some stupid made up american franchise in canada. Why don't you come up with anything remotely original instead of shatting on everyone else, I mean whats your solution? get as many mls and usl teams as they'll let us (I agree here) and then give up and settle for a pdl team? of course when the americans get around to fixing their developement system and we get a few teams in it you can claim their solutions as your own but your offering nothing, your saying 'this is great' and were NOT IN THE WORLD CUP.

We don't have to wait on the americans to properly develope our players for us (and when they design their systems, you think they think about us, NO, so why all the confidence? in their supposedly wonderful system?), the idea that travelling from bc to texas is better then cross canada is stupid(hypothetical west coast usl d2 conf), pdl travel isn't even all that cheap and the level of play isn't that great, so why are you so sure that a national league with a decent level of play (and in our case it would have silly little things like local tv coverage) would fail.

Finally "It would have long since happened by now if were doable", dumbest claim of the bunch, you ever hear of things called variables? you see variables are changing factors that affect the outcome, you've done very good and pointed out a static factor, our land mass, good for you, but you see, variable change, for example population goes up over the years, interest levels change over the years (especially when they've been exposed to...you know...marketing). Canada is one of the dumbest countries to say somethings impossible cause it failed before, you know canada's population has increased like 30% since the early nineties, and some of the new people already liked soccer (*gasps*) one day, the interest, money and talents all going to be good enough (maybe it already is) to make a bare bones pro league that isn't losing money, and then your honestly probably golden cause interest, like I've said so many is rising but fairly incrementally, you have a team, few good sponsors, hell, maybe your team is Atlante Calgary (you get like 5 figures a year and a decent kid or two on loan and reverseways can probably let a youngster spend a year in their your youth system), you have maybe 1500 fans at your important games and your on local tv. wages at this point are maybe just low 6 figures to start (hopefully in like 20 years when it's properly full time and more fans they could push up to like half a mil) and travel is expensive (good sponsorship deals, like with greyhound could fix this) but you just barely break even, this is actually great in this day and time because next year, cause like I said interest and population are going up, you'd probably be in line to get an extra few fans every year, this money is spent improving the club which increases support and 20 years from now, when hopefully our market will probably have grown another 30-40% you'll have a historied team run by people who have 20 years experience running a club and real community presence (not to mention any players it may have helped develope) instead of waiting to show up after calgary is big enough for MLS and USL (and informing them their now fortunate enough to deserve a decent team *alot more then sarcastic*) and being like, I got a new team, the Calgary Mickey Mousers, come on everybody!

I did it again, I went on and on, but god, don't you have any better ideas then putting out for teh americans?

[Alex D]

So Alex D wants to end the thread while having the last word.

Of course

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Not going to address most of what Vic and Juby have written because I see the whole desirability of using American professional leagues issue as an irrelevance where what happens at the CSL, PCSL sort of level is concerned and see no point in constantly pointing out the issues that arise based on geography in a relatively sparsely populated continental scale country. I will expand on what I wrote on one narrow issue, however.

...Amateurs don't get paid,...

At elite amateur clubs that is not necessarily the case. In reality, the distinction between "amateur" and "semi-pro" is often based on issues like the type of player registration form that is filled out rather than whether players actually receive money or not. Elite level amateur players sometimes do get paid under the table. I know people in London who have received sums like $100 a game to play in the local amateur league, WOSL (that used to happen more often than it does nowadays as crowds used to be bigger, more beer used to be consumed after games at social club bars etc). The flip side is that CSL players don't always get paid and not just at TFC and the Montreal Impacts' Academy teams. London City for example have been notorious for that.

This story from Friday's London Free Press might give people an idea of the level of finances that can be available at the larger social clubs that tend to have teams at the very top of the amateur level of the sport:

http://www.lfpress.com/sports/soccer/2010/08/05/14935986.html

AEK London will play an Ontario Cup men's quarterfinal match at home Saturday against Thunder Bay Juventus....

....This will be the first Ontario Cup game to be played at the Hellenic Community Centre on Southdale Road. The venue was renovated at a cost of about $500,000 and now has a soccer specific facility.

"It's gorgeous and what's really important is that it's soccer specific," he said.

The match is scheduled to kickoff at 5 p.m. Admission is $5 to the match. A lamb and pig roast will take place throughout the day to celebrate local soccer in the community.

Should probably state I have no idea whatsoever if anything happens at AEK where players getting paid is concerned. It's actually other London area clubs I've tended to hear stories about over the years. In the past eligibility issues surrounding the Olympic Games and NCAA scholarships used to necessitate having "amateur" and "semi-pro" competition fully separated from each other. That's no longer an issue so maintaining a strict delineation between the two is an anachronism, which prevents the most important issue of all, i.e. what happens out on the field of play, from being used to determine, who plays at what level in leagues like the CSL that are relatively local in scope (although a basic set of requirements for the home ground would also obviously be needed). Relegation and promotion quickly weeds out and replaces underachievers and keeps the overall quality of an elite division as high as possible making it easier for the better clubs to sustain spectator interest season after season.

[Alex D]

There is no debating that pro/rel is the best way to let talent excel, I can't argue with that. Just curious BBTB, if there were no leagues in Canada, we couldn't join any US leagues, and you were appointed to build the Canadian soccer system, what would it look like?

[Juby]

Not going to address most of what Vic and Juby have written because I see the whole desirability of using American professional leagues issue as an irrelevance where what happens at the CSL, PCSL sort of level is concerned and see no point in constantly pointing out the issues that arise based on geography in a relatively sparsely populated continental scale country. I will expand on what I wrote on one narrow issue, however.

At elite amateur clubs that is not necessarily the case. In reality, the distinction between "amateur" and "semi-pro" is often based on issues like the type of player registration form that is filled out rather than whether players actually receive money or not. Elite level amateur players sometimes do get paid under the table. I know people in London who have received sums like $100 a game to play in the local amateur league, WOSL (that used to happen more often than it does nowadays as crowds used to be bigger, more beer used to be consumed after games at social club bars etc). The flip side is that CSL players don't always get paid and not just at TFC and the Montreal Impacts' Academy teams. London City for example have been notorious for that.

This story from Friday's London Free Press might give people an idea of the level of finances that can be available at the larger social clubs that tend to have teams at the very top of the amateur level of the sport:

http://www.lfpress.com/sports/soccer/2010/08/05/14935986.html

AEK London will play an Ontario Cup men's quarterfinal match at home Saturday against Thunder Bay Juventus....

....This will be the first Ontario Cup game to be played at the Hellenic Community Centre on Southdale Road. The venue was renovated at a cost of about $500,000 and now has a soccer specific facility.

"It's gorgeous and what's really important is that it's soccer specific," he said.

The match is scheduled to kickoff at 5 p.m. Admission is $5 to the match. A lamb and pig roast will take place throughout the day to celebrate local soccer in the community.

Should probably state I have no idea whatsoever if anything happens at AEK where players getting paid is concerned. It's actually other London area clubs I've tended to hear stories about over the years. In the past eligibility issues surrounding the Olympic Games and NCAA scholarships used to necessitate having "amateur" and "semi-pro" competition fully separated from each other. That's no longer an issue so maintaining a strict delineation between the two is an anachronism, which prevents the most important issue of all, i.e. what happens out on the field of play, from being used to determine, who plays at what level in leagues like the CSL that are relatively local in scope (although a basic set of requirements for the home ground would also obviously be needed). Relegation and promotion quickly weeds out and replaces underachievers and keeps the overall quality of an elite division as high as possible making it easier for the better clubs to sustain spectator interest season after season.

the first part, you spent alot of words (most pointless and frivilous) to say once again, travel costs, not enough people, and I already addressed that theirs more people then last time it failed, more interest, more money, more talent and so you giving up because it failed 20 years ago is you being a old crank.

The second bit, you defend your views (do you go around redefining everyword to suit your purposes? I personally can't stand people who say, we'll my definition of this (that they made up) says this so I'm right, too bad the dictionary says different) by pointing out that people cheat? by that logic all football players are divers and all hockey players are stick wielding maniacs. Think about it, I pointed out a tonne of differences, you clearly didn't quite get it cause I talked very little about the actual money, semi pro has contractually obligated players and staff who will show up to play and train like 4 times a week, even if it's next to no money they engage themselves in a professional manner to improve their game as much as they can. Amateurs aren't legally obligated to play, Amateurs aren't supposed to be paid, honestly, the truth is, an amatuer 'club' is most often just a team and anything semi pro, by virtue of both competitive experience and history, as well as real business model (no matter how basic it is) is generally a club, like a community institution. All you have done is say, "you know this one time, I once heard of an amateur getting paid illegally, and you know this one time, I once heard of a semi pro player not getting paid illegally", Why don't we throw away the definitions of manslaughter and murder cause like, this one time, a guy who murdered someone only got manslaughter, and you know this one time, at band camp, a guy who committed manslaughter got convicted of murder(it's hugely overdramatic but the principle the same, exceptions don't make the definition dumb or obselete). by your logic if expceptions are made, no matter how dishonestly, then theirs no difference at all (I just don't think you get the point of having words be statically defined so everyone can, you know, communicate, rather than suiting all sorts of words you don't get the meaning of too meet to your purposes).

You keep saying that specifying between semi pro and amateur is pointless, you say it like it's some obvious undebateable fact, I've pointed out a bunch of mistakes in your silly stance, you pointed out a couple of exceptions, hold the phone, I guess we should call up the dictionary and tell them bbtb disagrees with their definitions. Thankfully you don't define the world of football, the world of football (like the dictionary) exists independantly of you, and you can pretend your opinion makes or breaks it all, but it really doesn't, your the only one who losses by making people think you fail to comprehend the subject your talking about.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

There is no debating that pro/rel is the best way to let talent excel, I can't argue with that. Just curious BBTB, if there were no leagues in Canada, we couldn't join any US leagues, and you were appointed to build the Canadian soccer system, what would it look like?

I think the KPMG report (commissioned by the CSA but then ignored because many people with Juby and Vic's sort of outlook couldn't cope emotionally with the conclusions) of the late 90s was correct and that the conditions are not currently in place for Canada to have a successful conventional pro league of its own. We are very lucky that the USSF allows our top teams into their league.

[Richard]

Very true - the constant bleating for a domestic national professional league is a classic case of emotion overriding logic and fact.

[Vic]

The funny thing about logic and fact is that everyone thinks they're the master, but no one owns that whore. We are all shivering bundles of pure unadulterated and unbridled emotion and passion for our dreams, wishes and interests. I make no bones about mine.