Expansion in CSL is ever coming?

[Juby]

Actually no disrespect to ny44 or NFNY and thanks for the information, but I don't like hearing about this at all. I support the CSL as a Canadian solution. This will diminish any hope of future Canadian connectivity on a larger scale, and essentially lock the league into becoming a fixed regional island of Mid-Eastern Central North America. Which IMHO is a poor goal and/or vision.

I see your point but hopefully american teams would just be an odd exception, just a handful might not really affect national plans (and if it's literally just the odd one here and there and they made good markets it might hopefully just be helpful for stability), I see your point though, I hope they don't get distracted trying to setup in new york and michigan at a delay (or at the cost of) going west.

And Sr, your ignoring turnover, if they have NO fans, and NO sponsors and their is NO revenue then yes theyll lose money. If they have a couple hundred fans (200fans X 15$ = 3000 X 15 games = 45 000) then they can cover those bigger contracts, plus sponsors, even on 200 fans your probably looking at a loss of like 50 000 a year. To be fair, for a decent football club 50 000 a year is not a huge loss and none of us can be sure it will only attract a couple 100 people

[Macksam]

http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/looks+field+true+national+league/3393800/story.html

More on western expansion.

As for the guy from Niagra Falls, I'm a little curious why this guy is interested in bringing the CSL to New York. Wouldn't the PDL do or is it becuase he's liking the direction the CSL is taking?

As for Vic's concerns, I wouldn't look too much into it. I mean, there's clearly been strong talk lately of western and cental expansion.

[bettermirror]

I have no issue with the odd American team. Might be a way for Detroit to move up the soccer ladder as well.

You can be sure if PCSL were to grow in a similar fashion (IF!) teams from Washington State would want to join - ie, Kitsap, Tacoma. Just exclude them from any national competition as they'd likely be allowed in the US Open Cup.

[bettermirror]

We already have a Canadian League thread.

Information copied to the CSL expansion thread, by MOD.

[Juby]

edit: that as in the vancouver sun article

that actually does say a decent amount, alot good, some I'm unsure of, for example it doesn't say how integrated the BC division would be (hopefully not very at first except playoffs cause you don't want to get ahead of yourself) but comments like the 6-8 team division and 40ish teams makes me think their planning a good regional setup.

[bettermirror]

Thread merged with current CSL expansion discussion - by mod.

[Macksam]

edit: that as in the vancouver sun article

that actually does say a decent amount, alot good, some I'm unsure of, for example it doesn't say how integrated the BC division would be (hopefully not very at first except playoffs cause you don't want to get ahead of yourself) but comments like the 6-8 team division and 40ish teams makes me think their planning a good regional setup.

Yeah, 40 teams would be good. The more stable clubs we have, the better it will be. More cities will probably want to get on the action as the league grows.

[Macksam]

CSL's Youth Development program.

http://canadiansoccerleague.ca/news_archive.php?news_id=280578

Did anyone come across this news a couple weeks back?

[ag futbol]

looks good, except for this nugget:

" The CSL intends to work with the OSA and other provinces to establish a similar relationship to assist with the development of players for Provincial Teams."

I long for the day when the provincial team program gets thrown in the garbage.

[kj52]

looks good, except for this nugget:

" The CSL intends to work with the OSA and other provinces to establish a similar relationship to assist with the development of players for Provincial Teams."

I long for the day when the provincial team program gets thrown in the garbage.

+1

[Macksam]

looks good, except for this nugget:

" The CSL intends to work with the OSA and other provinces to establish a similar relationship to assist with the development of players for Provincial Teams."

I long for the day when the provincial team program gets thrown in the garbage.

I agree with that.

Anyhow, all signs are pointing towards the CSL becoming a force when it comes to soccer development in this country.

[Vic]

+1 too but that's like saying I long for the day when I don't have to pay any taxes - not likely in my lifetime.

The provincial programs exists because there is a vacuum for very low cost training with the best players in an age group. We all long for the day the vacuum is filled with full professionalization, but outside of the MLS teams who don't operate at the younger ages like the provincial programs do - it's a long way away. No one has either the financial backing or the weight to conquer the minds of all the best players to pool them. And there are no solutions on the girls side. Zero.

Unless there is a major change to funding in Canadian soccer (i.e. a massive increase in government funding), that vacuum isn't going anywhere and the provincial programs are the best thing we have going as a country in terms of youth soccer at the young to mid-teen ages.

Dysfunctional as everything else to do with the game in Canada, often accurately maligned, sometimes horrifyingly poor, for the better part reasonable, sometimes great, and every now and then absolutely stellar. That sums up our programs and the day someone can provide the financial resources and commitment to turn that into a more consistent level of greatness I think you'll see the provinces be the first to stand up and cheer and opt out.

But again, doubt very much that will be in my lifetime.

[Macksam]

+1 too but that's like saying I long for the day when I don't have to pay any taxes - not likely in my lifetime.

The provincial programs exists because there is a vacuum for very low cost training with the best players in an age group. We all long for the day the vacuum is filled with full professionalization, but outside of the MLS teams who don't operate at the younger ages like the provincial programs do - it's a long way away. No one has either the financial backing or the weight to conquer the minds of all the best players to pool them. And there are no solutions on the girls side. Zero.

Unless there is a major change to funding in Canadian soccer (i.e. a massive increase in government funding), that vacuum isn't going anywhere and the provincial programs are the best thing we have going as a country in terms of youth soccer at the young to mid-teen ages.

Dysfunctional as everything else to do with the game in Canada, often accurately maligned, sometimes horrifyingly poor, for the better part reasonable, sometimes great, and every now and then absolutely stellar. That sums up our programs and the day someone can provide the financial resources and commitment to turn that into a more consistent level of greatness I think you'll see the provinces be the first to stand up and cheer and opt out.

But again, doubt very much that will be in my lifetime.

Yeah, but hopefully this step in the right direction will make the CSL like the old NSL and become a league that develops players for MLS. I think Garber and company would welcome that in all honesty. They would have a realtively cheap source of foreign players at their fingertips rather than looking overseas for imports.

[Alex D]

More importantly, a cheap source of players who want to play in MLS.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

OK still got a few things I'd like to say in this thread. It's easy to say, "we all want a Canadian league" but surely it should be qualified a bit to read, "we all want a viable Canadian league that actually works"? That is where the point of disagreement enters into the picture because some appear to be on a crusade to have a Canadian league for political reasons and will back any entity with "Canadian...Soccer League" in its name in a blind faith sort of way out of a misplaced sense of patriotism.

At the Division II level I would see a Canadian league as being worth pursuing if there were a strategic vision involved based like MLS on a long-term investment of capital by several deep-pocketed individuals and/or corporations. That would mean an SSS ideally being built in each city with a 5k to 10k sort of capacity with a view to future expansion and a budget based on genuine full-time professionalism with a break even point of about 5000 spectators. In the absence of that being viable it is better to have two or three teams in an American league than to try to do it in a Canadian context. What happens when the CSA are directly in the loop is that a mixture of soccer league and association empire builder types, opportunists who are on an ego trip and investors who are on a Walter Mitty style escapist fantasy combine to create something completely unrealistic and unsustainable that soon folds doing immense damage to the image of the sport.

At the Division III level although there is no obvious need for national coordination if regular seasons are going to be exclusively local affairs the flip side is that there are potential arguments in favour if it provides enhanced marketing opportunities etc and helps to bring all the top clubs in each province/large city into a rational systematic league structure based on promotion/relegation. To expect that last bit to happen in Canadian soccer is wildly optimistic unfortunately because the current shenanigans in Alberta are only the tip of the iceberg. In governance terms, Canadian soccer has no strategic vision (sadly the USSF is way ahead of the CSA on this) and is almost completely driven by the empire building of officeholders and their petty attempts to keep their snouts at the trough.

Even if the governance of Canadian soccer at the provincial and national association sort of levels were up to the task, the CSL's franchise based model is the wrong way to bring people together so they are all pushing in the same direction because the lack of promotion and relegation inherently creates a situation where there are parallel competing league structures. Anyone who naively thinks that the franchise in the higher status league will always have the best team in its locality with the most spectator interest should study what has happened in London, Ont over the last 20 years. In BC if the CSL brought the PCSL and the winter club leagues like the VMSL, VISL and FVSL together it would probably be very beneficial to the development of the sport. Instead what is more likely to happen is that the initial way in for the CSL will be attract fringe groups and clubs that the existing leagues prefer to have as little to do with as possible (anybody else remember the guy in Calgary with his CPSL west stuff?) and a two way split in organizational terms will be turned into a three-way split based in part on an anachronistic division of clubs into amateur and semi-pro categories long after the original rationale for doing it had ceased to apply.

To sum up. Canadian national leagues would be good under the right circumstances but in the absence of the conditions required to do the job properly attempts to create them are liable to do a lot more harm than good. I will only follow up on posts that stick to the issues and will ignore all posts that contain personal attacks.

[Macksam]

At the Division III level although there is no obvious need for national coordination if regular seasons are going to be exclusively local affairs the flip side is that there are potential arguments in favour if it provides enhanced marketing opportunities etc and helps to bring all the top clubs in each province/large city into a rational systematic league structure based on promotion/relegation. To expect that last bit to happen in Canadian soccer is wildly optimistic unfortunately because the current shenanigans in Alberta are only the tip of the iceberg. In governance terms, Canadian soccer has no strategic vision (sadly the USSF is way ahead of the CSA on this) and is almost completely driven by the empire building of officeholders and their petty attempts to keep their snouts at the trough.

You're forgetting the most important thing, it will bring a unified set of standards and requirements for pro development in this country. We're saying this will be a great thing like the CHL.

What good is promotion relegation going to do?

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

The CHL is not an open-age semi-pro league so there is no real parallel there. Given the use of student athletes and focus on the development of young players for a major league level entry draft the obvious parallel would actually be between PDL and the CHL rather than with the CSL. You might do well to ponder, why semi-pro open-age senior hockey teams are unable to operate using the same "regional" league format used in a CHL or PDL context and ask yourself why it would suddenly be possible to do it in soccer?

With very few exceptions, relegation and promotion is an integral feature of the league formats used in soccer throughout the word because it is self-regulating in terms of the standard which matters most (i.e. the quality of play out on the field against the other teams in the league). Any team which fails to field to field a competitive side is replaced by a new team from a lower divisions. In the absence of an entry draft and other measures to ensure competitive parity (as happens in MLS, one of the few exceptions on this), a franchise based league system amounts to a cosy cartel created so that there is no penalty for the failure to field a competitive team. That is a recipe for mediocrity and the emergence of a set of perennial strugglers that even the fans of the better teams have no interest in paying to watch.

On the subject of standards it's also worth noting these weasel words that prefaced what Bill Spiers had to say about semi-professional standards, "Although I'm not sure what the CSA finally approved...". I seriously question whether most of the current CSL franchises could operate under the conditions he listed (London City now have a $225k budget? there are nine players on pro contracts at TFC Academy?) so I suspect something considerably watered down from that is actually involved.

[coppercanuck]

The interesting move, for me, would be if the CSL could setup a CSL-2 or a relationship with some other leagues. The Quebec senior league have 20 teams that play on a provincial basis. I find the Ontario Soccer League system a bit more confusing, so some extra input would be helpful. If the CSL could find a way to cap the league at 10 (I believe I heard an interview that stated that 8 teams was too few), new teams from Ontario need to join CSL-2(ON). The bottom 2 teams from the CSL would be dropped to their respective regional league (ON or QC) and the top team in CSL-2(ON) and the LSEQ-1 could be invited to join the CSL. The promotion / relegation model will work. Teams will get a peek at what the next level looks like and top teams dropping down get a reminder as to what they like about the top level. It will also, slowly, make the current CSL a Windsor-Quebec Corridor league.

If the BC/AB scene can get together on philosophy similar to the CSL Ontario group it would be great. For me, it doesn't mean putting teams in Red Deer; sorry, not yet. A Vancouver - Edmonton - Calgary league can work for many teams from the travel stand point. It happened that way for the CSL in Toronto. The only cities outside this scope who are in the 2006 Census Top 20 are Winnipeg (8), Halifax (13), Saskatoon (17), Regina (18) and St. John's (20). When considering that the Newfie capital has a population of 181,113, the bulk of the Canadian population would be covered with this structure. Could a CSL-BC/AB start with the top 2 teams from each of the PCSL, VISL, VMSL, FVSL and AMSL? A 10 team league only requires the 9 road trips (actually less with a double game weekend). Add a few cup games, play-offs and pro/rel play-offs to fill out the number of games.

[Macksam]

The CHL is not an open-age semi-pro league so there is no real parallel there. Given the use of student athletes and focus on the development of young players for a major league level entry draft the obvious parallel would actually be between PDL and the CHL rather than with the CSL. You might do well to ponder, why semi-pro open-age senior hockey teams are unable to operate using the same "regional" league format used in a CHL or PDL context and ask yourself why it would suddenly be possible to do it in soccer?

With very few exceptions, relegation and promotion is an integral feature of the league formats used in soccer throughout the word because it is self-regulating in terms of the standard which matters most (i.e. the quality of play out on the field against the other teams in the league). Any team which fails to field to field a competitive side is replaced by a new team from a lower divisions. In the absence of an entry draft and other measures to ensure competitive parity (as happens in MLS, one of the few exceptions on this), a franchise based league system amounts to a cosy cartel created so that there is no penalty for the failure to field a competitive team. That is a recipe for mediocrity and the emergence of a set of perennial strugglers that even the fans of the better teams have no interest in paying to watch.

On the subject of standards it's also worth noting these weasel words that prefaced what Bill Spiers had to say about semi-professional standards, "Although I'm not sure what the CSA finally approved...". I seriously question whether most of the current CSL franchises could operate under the conditions he listed (London City now have a $225k budget? there are nine players on pro contracts at TFC Academy?) so I suspect something considerably watered down from that is actually involved.

The CSL is starting to focus on player development now so there is a real parallel. The current U-20 team has 7 CSL players, and we're just barely scratching the surface here with what the CSL is capable of. Where's the PDL in this picture?

What you say on promotion/relegation is theoretical, but wouldn't work in all honesty. The CSL has a set of standards they want their clubs to abide by. Until we have a lot of clubs that can meet those standards, the franchise model is best.

On the subject of your and Bill's pessimism, it's nothing more than blind cynicism which I can understand to an extent. However, it's time to get progressive.

[Bill Spiers]

Not quite sure why I'm being accused of "weasel words" and "pessimism".

BBtB and Macksam - can you explain?

[Macksam]

Not quite sure why I'm being accused of "weasel words" and "pessimism".

BBtB and Macksam - can you explain?

I was confused with that line of his as well. I think he's implying that you questioned the CSL's motives.

[Vic]

Simple - you don't agree with him.

[Karam]

This may have been mentioned already in this thread, but wouldn't the natural first step be giving the CSL champions a birth in the NCC? I feel this would make the league a little more legitimate. Maybe good players would become better motivated to join a CSL club, and maybe soccer fans would pay more interest in the CSL(even if it's just to see who's gonna take on our top clubs) and actually come out and watch some games, even if it's only playoff games they watch.

That would generate more interest and more money for the league.

[Richard]

BringBackTheBlizzard re CSL expansion - I could not have said it better myself.

[Macksam]

BringBackTheBlizzard re CSL expansion - I could not have said it better myself.

Well maybe if the PCSL took a little more initiative like the CSL is doing, they wouldn't have to expand into your province.