jpg75 Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 Definitely solidly semi-pro from what I understand. Beyond Ulster Thistle's ethnic approach I think a lot of the top teams in North America in that era were employer sponsored works teams (Bethlehem Steel for example in the United States) and things were taking off in terms of interest until the Great Depression hit but I've never seen it argued that genuine full-time professionalism emerged at that point. There was a league that lasted one season in the late 40s that might have been an attempt at it, however. Never got around to researching it. It was North American rather than Canadian in scope and I think the Canadian team that was involved was called the Toronto Greenbacks. To add perspective to that, a number of teams in France during the '50's and early 60's were employer sponsored with the top players earning fat paycheques to 'supervise' in the factories. FC Rouen was playing in the 1st division with mostly sponsored players as well as US Cuevilly which was a lower league club based out of Rouen that had an uber-wealthy factory owner treating the team as his play thing. My father played 2 years for the Cuevilly youth team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 I dunno, I think it's still worthwhile to discuss. I guess CSA does also, given their sanctioning moratorium and desire to study the feasibility. It's all well and good to point out history, but history is just a story that is in the context of past conditions. Are current conditions different? What conditions contributed to the past failures that have changed, or can change if we choose to act? The reason the argument goes on is because you and Richard are strong on the history but you sidestep these conditions. jloome seems to believe certain critical factors have changed, while I remain unconvinced either way. I am not sidestepping anything. Any potential investors will have to assess ticket revenue prospects as part of their business plan. As yet no investors appear to have come forward to support the formation of a national domestic D2 league. Draw your own conclusions. If the CSA in their deliberations conclude otherwise and can demonstrate the existence of sufficient committed investors to make it all happen then I will be delighted. Till then I remain skeptical and will continue to treat all such speculation as mere fantasy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redcoatsforever Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 Absolute nonsense and I dare you to say that with your real name attached. Quite quickly, my friend, you will find out that libel law quite clearly extends to internet forums right now. I have no axe to grind with FC Edmonton whatsoever. I suggest you retract that, and I suggest that the forum admin take note as well. Incidentally, I had a nice discussion with the owner of FC Edmonton, by mail, last night. We discussed the game at commonwealth and my paper's plans to try and get people out to the game. You sir, are a coward and a jackass. You're a copy editor with a newpaper, right? In Toronto I only just now thought about how strange it would be to apply for a job with an Edmonton tier 2 soccer club under those circumstances... This thread is getting a bit confusing lately. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jloome Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 You're a copy editor with a newpaper, right? In Toronto I only just now thought about how strange it would be to apply for a job with an Edmonton tier 2 soccer club under those circumstances... This thread is getting a bit confusing lately. Nope, editorial page editor with the Edmonton Sun. And I talked to them about their communications plans. We agreed to disagree, left on good terms and I've been both shipping notes their way on things I've noticed and writing supportive editorials (already, months ago) in our paper. Simply put, I've informed the admin of my position on that post and I expect action taken accordingly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Bob Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 Absolute nonsense and I dare you to say that with your real name attached. Quite quickly, my friend, you will find out that libel law quite clearly extends to internet forums right now. Calling people "a coward and a jackass", however, totally legal. Walking the line very well there; trying to take the "I'll sue you!" high ground while still coming off remarkably anti-socially. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jloome Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 It's entirely legal to state an honestly-held opinion. It's entirely illegal to lie about someone publicly by stating something that is provably false. In effect, I am putting my money where my mouth is. You don't have to like me, Bob, but as long as I don't actually libel you, that's not really my problem, is it> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul-collins Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 I am not sidestepping anything. Any potential investors will have to assess ticket revenue prospects as part of their business plan. As yet no investors appear to have come forward to support the formation of a national domestic D2 league. Draw your own conclusions. If the CSA in their deliberations conclude otherwise and can demonstrate the existence of sufficient committed investors to make it all happen then I will be delighted. Till then I remain skeptical and will continue to treat all such speculation as mere fantasy.So as "mere fantasy" will you allow the dreamers to dream or are you more happy to try to denigrate the dreams? I think the rest of your post up to the word "skeptical" was pretty rational. On the other hand, without a structure to form a league - any league, never mind just D2 - you can't expect an individual investor (single team) to step forward and say "hey I'd like to throw money into a league that isn't even on the radar yet." I'm not convinced that CSA is up to coming up with the league structure. I also don't know if jloome has a fully fleshed out idea at the league level - I've seen some good ideas at the club level but I'm not sure I agree with the national league level as he's sketched. But that doesn't preclude *somebody* coming up with a model that works for the participants and the fans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 ^ Until there is/are investors stepping up to the plate publicly for such a league everything else associated with it is fantasy and rational people will remain skeptical and so they should. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redcoatsforever Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 ^ Until there is/are investors stepping up to the plate publicly for such a league everything else associated with it is fantasy and rational people will remain skeptical and so they should. So how are the sort of people who might build a league supposed to draw those investor dollars without a model to pitch to them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul-collins Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 This is circular reasoning at its finest. "The league won't ever exist because there are no investors for it." "Investors won't step forward because there's no league for them to join." At some point you have to break the circle. Or you can just reiterate. Your choice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BringBackTheBlizzard Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 There are USSF sanctioned leagues readily available and in recent years Canadian investors have been actively setting up full-time pro level operations to participate in them. When interviewed about it these investors consistently express a preference for sticking with the USSF leagues rather than moving to a Canada only format sanctioned by the CSL. Not sure what the problem is supposed to be at that point? Some sort of D2 league is clearly sustainable on a North American basis and one way or another the current politics at the USSF over sanctioning a D2 league will be sorted out. Once that happens and the CSA's moratorium is out of the way odds on Hamilton and Ottawa will be joining Edmonton in whatever that league is by 2015 or so. 6 fully pro teams split between MLS and D2 level is not that bad a short to medium term target for Canadian pro soccer to aim for. Those of us who were actually following the fortunes of pro soccer in Canada 15 years ago can remember when the landscape was much bleaker than it is now. Between the way things were then and the way things are now there was an active attempt by the CSA and a group called CUSL to attract investors to a D1 level Canadian league but that soon fizzled out and eventually things moved in the direction of sticking with USSF sanctioned leagues and MLS arrived instead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul-collins Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 All of that assumes that USSF will back down on the 25% cap on foreign involvement. So long as we're beholden to the USSF, we will never have stability. That's the ultimate problem from the CSA's point of view. It's kind of weird to consider that we are in a better position to field teams than they are in US D2 markets, but that seems to be the case right now. Edmonton / Ottawa / maybe Hamilton / Calgary are markets that in theory could run out a D1 team, if other sports success is any measure. Of course, the existing (and reasonable) limits on MLS membership preclude them joining at this time, and the cities will have to prove they are a soccer market, not just a sports one. If they want to prove their worthiness right now, they have to do it in the existing framework, which means they have to go to USL/NASL. There is no alternative framework for them to do otherwise. Whether CUSL was well thought out or not is not for me to judge, given the paucity of information available to me on the subject as an outsider. But for whatever reason it didn't work out. Discussion of that (and whether it could be remedied) might be good fodder for a future topic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BringBackTheBlizzard Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 As things stand D2 level leagues sanctioned by the USSF need to get to 12 teams after a relatively short time span so having 3 in Canada at that level isn't an issue in 25% terms. Becomes more problematic after that if three matching American teams don't materialize but the number of 750,000+ markets available is limited (probably only Calgary left). In USSF terms what you regard as a D1 level city (not unreasonably in a Canadian context) is the threshold for what is regarded as a D2 level city south of the boder. Beyond that there's always the USSF's D3 as an option as well. Think that's the option that FC London and the Victoria Highlanders have been exploring and I don't think there's any 25% limit for that (will check later). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ted Posted February 25, 2011 Author Share Posted February 25, 2011 Whether CUSL was well thought out or not is not for me to judge, given the paucity of information available to me on the subject as an outsider. But for whatever reason it didn't work out. Discussion of that (and whether it could be remedied) might be good fodder for a future topic. In case you have not seen it please check out Building the Dream which includes two versions of the CUSL plan and links to something I put together in 1999. I like to think it was well thought out and frankly still has some use. If I can find some of the older posts on this board discussing the failure of the plan I'll add that link as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul-collins Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 Thanks, Ted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ted Posted February 25, 2011 Author Share Posted February 25, 2011 If you can get past the anger I felt at the time you can get some of the back story by perusing this thread: Ben Knight, Gerry Gentile and the CUSL. Please make sure to read it all the way through as I eventually apologized for some of the things I said in the first post. I would hate my earlier, angry statements, to be what you take away. For admin: It sure seems hard to search the old threads. I only found this one by doing a Google search. The site search function gave me nothing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul-collins Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 Hey, look at that - BBTB dismissing all-Canadian soccer and cheering USL in that thread too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BringBackTheBlizzard Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 Would you go on a hockey board and give people a hard time for supporting NHL teams because it mainly contains American teams or is this sort of stance only reserved for soccer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul-collins Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 Would you care to explain why you think Canadian teams participating in USL are not an integral part of Canadian soccer? ALL-Canadian. Did you miss that part? I was referring to CUSL in that post. You know, the base premise of this thread, and all that. Canadian teams are an integral part of the overall Canadian soccer picture (in the absence of anything better) but they still exist at the mercy of USSF. Does that make their existence a reliable lynchpin of Canadian soccer? Since you completely reworded your post, here's the new one: Would you go on a hockey board and give people a hard time for supporting NHL teams because it mainly contains American teams or is this sort of stance only reserved for soccer? No, it's reserved for soccer. The reason is contained in my post below - it's a governance issue in soccer in a way that it is not in hockey. So long as the USSF proclaims there will be limits on our participation, and the MLS sets domestic content rules for the US and not for us, our soccer development path is beholden to USSF whims in a way that Canadian hockey is not beholden to USA Hockey. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ted Posted February 25, 2011 Author Share Posted February 25, 2011 Hey, look at that - BBTB dismissing all-Canadian soccer and cheering USL in that thread too! To be fair, I come down on the North American leagues principle over an all-Canadian solution as the best way forward right now as well. I am not philosophically opposed to an all-Canadian solution, I just have not seen anything that suggests it is more viable than the framework already in existance. Either way what I want is a sustainable D2 involving as many Canadian clubs and players as possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul-collins Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 If I thought the CSA could work it out with USSF to protect our interests, I'd accept a north-south structure as well. In the absence of border issues, I think it is the easier solution to create stability. That's my basic problem, though. As if it isn't enough to not trust CSA to get it done alone, I also have to live with a protectionist urge from the USSF knowing the CSA can't counteract it! The difference is basically that it's within our power (presumably) to actively fix CSA, but outside our ability or even responsibility to change the USSF. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BringBackTheBlizzard Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 Canadian teams are an integral part of the overall Canadian soccer picture (in the absence of anything better) but they still exist at the mercy of USSF. Does that make their existence a reliable lynchpin of Canadian soccer? Go on a hockey board and ask that sort of question to fans of the Maple Leafs, Canucks etc and see what sort of answer you get. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul-collins Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 Go on a hockey board and ask that sort of question to fans of the Maple Leafs, Canucks etc and see what sort of answer you get. You've really got a hardon for my interest in hockey, haven't you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jloome Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 I just have not seen anything that suggests it is more viable than the framework already in existance. Given the instability of both NASL and USL, what supports the idea that the current framework is viable? I'm not sure Americans will ever support D2 soccer at its current investment level. You might be right that Canada is the same, and with a smaller pop across more area, it's even more unrealistic, but I'm not sure that's the case. I believe we are a much more Euro-centric culture than the U.S. and that perhaps Canadians will buy in more, if a suitable investment level could be attained. But I have to read your two documents now, as that kind of level of detail generally is fascinating. Something to do after work tonight! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ted Posted February 25, 2011 Author Share Posted February 25, 2011 Given the instability of both NASL and USL, what supports the idea that the current framework is viable? I'm not sure how you judge the USL as unstable. For all it's faults it has survived for years and provided the only thing resembling pro soccer in Canada for many years. As for the NASL they have not even kicked off their first season as a stand-alone league so I will reserve judgment on their instability. I'm not sure Americans will ever support D2 soccer at its current investment level. OK. Even if I agreed with that pessimism what does that have to say about a Canadian league? If they are not willing to invest in teams that does not somehow magically translate into willingness to invest by Canadians. I believe we are a much more Euro-centric culture than the U.S. and that perhaps Canadians will buy in more, if a suitable investment level could be attained. OK, I really don't know where you are going with this but a realistic estimate of investment levels required to initiate and sustain a D2 league in Canada are not significantly lower than those for the NASL. I think it will actually take more per team to start a whole new national league but even if that is not your opinion you have to accept that at least it would require the same level of investment to be successful? But I have to read your two documents now, as that kind of level of detail generally is fascinating. Something to do after work tonight! Have you really not seen these before? Good thing paul-collins asked about the history then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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