Whitecaps building for 2011

[An Observer]

I doubt USSF care about developing CDN players either....however, to be a reputable league, the MLS has to have the same rules for all the times. You can't have different rules apply to 3 teams out of the 19 or 20. If you do, you have an unfair playing field as CDN teams have an extra pool of players to draw from which the US teams don't. Moreover, such a preference maybe illegal under CDN immigration laws, therefore whether the USSF wants to favour US player development or not...the MLS maybe prevented from doing so. But as I say, I don't believe this should be left for the USSF to agree, it should be the CSA that is lobbying hard for this.

[TFCRegina]

^ If Our government cared about soccer they'd implement strict work permit rules around this.

[Gian-Luca]

I think its safe to say there would be an uproar if American's counted as domestics in Canada but Canadian didn't count as domestics in the US. I can't imagine why the US based teams would agree to that since the Canadian teams would have an incredibly huge advantage from that rule, one that would be to the detriment of Canadian soccer development. However, I'll wait to hear something official or even semi-official before I start the uproar in question.

[tovan1]

are there any labour laws in NAFTA that allow for mobility of persons between US/Canada similar to what exists in Europe and the EU?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosman_ruling

[TFCRegina]

are there any labour laws in NAFTA that allow for mobility of persons between US/Canada similar to what exists in Europe and the EU?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosman_ruling

No. Labour standards are not very strong in NAFTA.

The European Union is a Monetary and Political Confederation, the strongest form of Union short of a federal state (like Canada, Mexico or the US is).

NAFTA is a free trade agreement. In Economics they generalize these things but if there are five forms of agreements, NAFTA is number four, the EU is number 2. With 1 being the strongest form of Union.

[TFCRegina]

Also, I've changed my mind on the USSF rules:

Simple thing about the USSF standards...it's actually not all that big of a threat.

First: NCAA, the primary development tool, alongside PDL does not provide enough development for American players. What this means is that American development is not going to improve, not through these mediums. The US has very little invested into college soccer, so we can foreseeably see the NCAA having much success. PDL has a lot of very amateur soccer as well. There are few good programs (and a lot of the good ones are located in Canada).

Second: Div 2 and Div 3 soccer in the US is a mess. Teams are barely stable and not a lot of development takes place there. Players that are developed tend to end up in Europe rather than MLS. The Div2/Div3 mess from USL/NASL has actually worked to Canada's favour, because with Montreal and Van City moving up, we're getting more teams, even if we're capped at 25%. Not a big deal I say, even with the domestic rules.

Why don't the domestic rules concern me? That's how they've been operating the whole time in USL/NASL. Canadians and Americans count as domestics and yet Vancouver and Montreal still employed large numbers of Canadians to Americans.

Third: Canada has seen strong division three growth and, as evidenced above, this will continue. However, MLSE needs to open the wallet (along with Saputo and Kerfoot) and be willing to pay small to medium transfer fees to pillage the CSL of talent. It's right there and they're improving the development of players as we speak. The US is not implementing anything comparable, and their Div2/Div3 is starting to fail due to heavy infighting. Team insolvency has existed in Canada in the past, but the CSL seems to be getting things right this time.

Point Four: There's still a lot of (young) Canadians being released from European clubs (sometimes Div 2 and Div 3) and these bring experience with them back to Canada and likely can compete. The level of MLS is going to slow in growth over the next five years because the quality of NCAA/PDL isn't enough to supply the needs of the league.

Point Five: Even if MLS clubs develop Academies, their academies will supply their own needs and not Canadian needs. Canadian clubs will have academies with Canadians (primarily anyway), American clubs will have academies with Americans, and these will exclusively provide talent to them.

Point Six: Americans are ultimately going to want to play at home, in their home markets. It doesn't mean that they can't play in Canada, but guys like Gargan and Barrett will likely end up in Philly and Portland, respectively, as much as I like both players.

[Smapti]

As per Marc Weber, confirmation of signing of Alain Rochet, plus signing of attacking midfielder Davide Chiumiento.

http://communities.canada.com/theprovince/blogs/backofthenet/archive/2010/08/17/whitecaps-set-to-sign-swiss-super-league-pair.aspx

The latter is described as the Swiss Ronaldinho on his Wikipedia page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davide_Chiumiento

And here's some video proof

[BuzzAndSting]

Wow... Good signing by the Caps.

[TheKottonmouthed1555362307]

Nice highlight package there for davide, kid can really play with the ball. I know it's a biased Youtube collection, still impressive.

Can't wait to see him lighting it up at Swangaard and eventually Empire.