Canadian soccer boss Victor Montagliani is the new CONCACAF president

[hamiltonfan]

On May 12, 2016 at 11:53 AM, Ansem said:

These are my thoughts:

1-We will edge the US and Mexico for the 2026 World Cup:

• We have a Federal Government who's all in for spending on infrastructure projects and would surely back a World Cup bid. 
• With the Federal Government all in, the CSA will submit a strong bid meeting all of FIFA requirements (CPL, # of stadiums, Natural grass and all of FIFA crazy rules and demands)
• Canada never held a World Cup, while Mexico and the US already did
• Canada held every World Cups except the main one and might I had, we broke several attendance records on the lesser ones
• Most importantly, we have the President of CONCACAF & Vice-President of FIFA that will heavily lobby for Canada 2026, (I am also of the opinion that the US didn't make many friends within FIFA for exposing them)

2-The Canadian Premier League will happen:

• This will strengthen his pitch to potential investors to get the league going and to stick with it, especially when a FIFA Vice-President and CONCACAF president selling the project.
• The Canadian Premier League will get the "1st Division" sanction
• The Canadian Premier League (I love that name) will send its champion to the CONCACAF Champions League, giving Canada 2 spots
• The Canadian Premier League will get Edmonton FC and Ottawa Fury and wipe NASL off the Canadian map by decisively surpassing that league domestically and within a very short period of time, in quality of play and financially overall.
• In the long term, CPL could be attractive and competitive enough to start working on luring the big 3s: Toronto FC, Montreal Impact and Vancouver Whitecaps

3-Other thoughts and wishes:

• Division 3 mirroring the Canadian Hockey League will happen. They will copy that proven model and make it a success with a "Memorial Cup" tournament which could lead to a participation in the Canadian Championship.
• Creating a "Division 2":I'm hoping the CSA does not pursue the major Leagues and the MLS model. I'm really hoping they go for a "Promotion & Relegation system" like the rest of the world, which is more appropriate for a country like Canada. We will never have more than 8-9 big soccer markets but by creating a "Division 2", you can have all the medium size markets having a club, competing for a spot in the first division. This would in turn be an incentive for local businesses to invest in those clubs with the hopes of getting national exposure if they do well.

4-National Program: If all the above would get implemented, our talent pool would drastically increase and make our National Team (realistically as of 2026 and beyond) more competitive and more consistent.

 

Add to my thoughts, agree or disagree to them.

Anyhow, the future is bright for Canada!

This is the beginning: https://youtu.be/ByaizI-2Zzg

And we're out. MIC DROP.

[hamiltonfan]

On May 12, 2016 at 3:58 PM, theaub said:

I'd like to see something like

2017 - USA

2019 - Group stage: Canada, Jamaica, Trinidad...Knockout Stage: USA

2021 - Group stage: Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama...Knockout Stage: Mexico

I would too. Sponsors won't and certainly with merit. 

[Unnamed Trialist]

16 hours ago, Trillium said:

Exactly Tuscan, Victor should be resigning his current CSA position as quickly as possible, he has moved to the CONCACAF level his job is to work for soccer throughout the region, not to do backdoor bungs for the CSA/BC/Vancouver.

If your a fan of the game and want it to be transparent and above board, don't expect or ask Victor to treat the CSA in any special way, indeed ensure that CONCACAF and FIFA reforms are enforced in Canada, for example ensure each club in Canada ( professional or non-professional ) can affliate directly  with the CSA as is done in most other countries in the world where clubs affliate with the national association directly.

Have all clubs in the country capable of voting for CSA executive.

Develop geographic regions for the game ( ignoring provincial boundaries ) for representative play to a national championships, so the insanity of NWT playing against Ontario in national championships is ended at youth level.

Thanks for this and for Tuscan's brief and spot on comment. 

The sooner the state of exception that you point out in Canadian soccer, a consequence mostly of easy-way-out alliance with the US, is liquidated, we'll be talking. 

But I don't expect big moves for Canada from Vic. To be elected he did not have to fight for the Canadian vote. He battled for all the others. Meaning his focus, promises, committments and obligations, in case of wanting to be reelected down the road, have to be about keeping THEM happy. Not us. 

[finchster]

I am liking the new football mafia in Concacaf, the last one was just so uncool.

[CanadianSoccerFan]

I can see now how Victor pulled this off. 

His fluency in French and Spanish was an enormous advantage over the unilingual Larry Mussendon.  The four Caribbean nations (Haiti, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and Cuba) that openly supported him prior to the vote were non-English speaking and that is no coincidence.  You can apply this to his backing from Central America.  He could speak to these voters in their own language.

Further to the linguistic advantage, there are currently 6 CONCACAF members that are not members of FIFA (Bonaire, Saint Maarten, St. Martin, French Guyana, Guadeloupe, and Martinique).  Victor included in his election manifesto that he would fight for these members to gain admission to FIFA while Mussendon made no mention of this.  Four of those are French speaking .  Vic was able to tell those members in their own language that he was going to try to get them into FIFA.

That's 20 votes already.  One short of the amount required.

Add to that his offer to expand the gold cup to 16 teams and a few other non-English speaking members like Suriname jumping ship and he got to 25.

In summary, I think Vic managed to break the Caribbean bloc into simply an English-Caribbean bloc which was mathematically beatable.

[Ansem]

Victor Montagliani interview

May 19th show at 10 am

http://www.sportsnet.ca/590/jeff-blair-show/

 

[Unnamed Trialist]

On 15/5/2016 at 8:12 PM, CanadianSoccerFan said:

I can see now how Victor pulled this off. 

His fluency in French and Spanish was an enormous advantage over the unilingual Larry Mussendon.  The four Caribbean nations (Haiti, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and Cuba) that openly supported him prior to the vote were non-English speaking and that is no coincidence.  You can apply this to his backing from Central America.  He could speak to these voters in their own language.

Further to the linguistic advantage, there are currently 6 CONCACAF members that are not members of FIFA (Bonaire, Saint Maarten, St. Martin, French Guyana, Guadeloupe, and Martinique).  Victor included in his election manifesto that he would fight for these members to gain admission to FIFA while Mussendon made no mention of this.  Four of those are French speaking .  Vic was able to tell those members in their own language that he was going to try to get them into FIFA.

That's 20 votes already.  One short of the amount required.

Add to that his offer to expand the gold cup to 16 teams and a few other non-English speaking members like Suriname jumping ship and he got to 25.

In summary, I think Vic managed to break the Caribbean bloc into simply an English-Caribbean bloc which was mathematically beatable.

You forgot to say how he got Guyana and Grenada, must have slipped your mind. Sorry to have to bring it up again. 

I did not know he was "fluent" in Spanish, is that really the case? Where did he learn Spanish?

[Blackdude]

The program was available in Dutch, Spanish, French and English. I think that the fact that he took the time to put the program in the official languages of all federations probably won him a few votes. 

[Unnamed Trialist]

17 hours ago, Blackdude said:

The program was available in Dutch, Spanish, French and English. I think that the fact that he took the time to put the program in the official languages of all federations probably won him a few votes. 

That's smart, but I am still wondering if he speaks Spanish. 

I can understand a lot of Italian having Spanish and Catalan; I can follow 75% anyone from Rome north, but I can't really speak a thing except tourist crap.

[rob.notenboom]

3 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

That's smart, but I am still wondering if he speaks Spanish. 

I can understand a lot of Italian having Spanish and Catalan; I can follow 75% anyone from Rome north, but I can't really speak a thing except tourist crap.

I don't have any ability to judge his fluency in Spanish, but I listened to the raw audio of his presser after the CONCACAF election and he took and answered questions in both French and Spanish. Afraid I can't dig up the link to the audio

[CanadianSoccerFan]

First act as president is to sue Jack Warner for $50 million.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-20/onetime-soccer-kingpin-jack-warner-faces-50-million-fraud-suit

Long story short, Jack Warner had the CONCACAF center of excellence funded by FIFA but built in Trinidad on land he owned which basically allowed him to steal it.  He used it to launder his bribes for years.  All the while he was able to falsify CONCACAF's financial statements to make it look like CONCACAF still owned it because the books were both audited AND prepared by Jack's crooked accountant from Trinidad.  The in house accounting controller was allegedly an opiate addicted drunk that could barely function on a daily basis, let alone be competent enough to question these things.  This also allowed Chuck Blazer to get away with 29 million in expenses in just 7 years. 

Anyone who wants to know what a complete and utter gong show CONCACAF really has been from the inside for the last 25 years should read American Huckster

[jpg75]

That is fantastic news. Jack Warner was a scourge, i hope they bleed him dry (but not holding my breath)

[nolbertos]

I thought the reason Jack went down with his FIFA buddies was that Chuck Blazers on his death bed and he ratted out his buddies for financial security and no jail time for his family.  Chuck Blazer made off with tons of money too being 2nd in command in CONCACAF.  Jack Warner is forever stuck in Trinidad as there's an extradition for him to a US jail.

[nolbertos]

Dp

[Grizzly]

3 minutes ago, nolbertos said:

I thought the reason Jack went down with his FIFA buddies was that Chuck Blazers on his death bed and he ratted out his buddies for financial security and no jail time for his family.  Chuck Blazer made off with tons of money too being 2nd in command in CONCACAF.  Jack Warner is forever stuck in Trinidad as there's an extradition for him to a US jail.

Yes and how convenient that the American plea bargained and ratted out all the corrupt Caribbean soccer federations yet the even more corrupt American soccer federation has been spared any scrutiny because Blazer took the fall for everything to reduce his charges and the US got even luckier because he is dying.

[Unnamed Trialist]

5 hours ago, Grizzly said:

Yes and how convenient that the American plea bargained and ratted out all the corrupt Caribbean soccer federations yet the even more corrupt American soccer federation has been spared any scrutiny because Blazer took the fall for everything to reduce his charges and the US got even luckier because he is dying.

This seems to be an accurate analysis of what happened there.

But we have to thank the fact that there was corruption in the States that American DA's got interested in investigating FIFA, since it was in their jurisdiction. I think without the US justice system reacting things would not have changed at all these last 2 years.

[Unnamed Trialist]

16 hours ago, rob.notenboom said:

I don't have any ability to judge his fluency in Spanish, but I listened to the raw audio of his presser after the CONCACAF election and he took and answered questions in both French and Spanish. Afraid I can't dig up the link to the audio

Good for Vic then, I am impressed.

[rob.notenboom]

3 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

Good for Vic then, I am impressed.

Here is the audio from the phone presser so you can have a listen to Mont Vic's English, French, and Spanish

https://archive.org/details/VictorRecordingFinal

[Unnamed Trialist]

1 hour ago, rob.notenboom said:

Here is the audio from the phone presser so you can have a listen to Mont Vic's English, French, and Spanish

https://archive.org/details/VictorRecordingFinal

I'll have my marking pen out!!

[rob.notenboom]

16 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

I'll have my marking pen out!!

Go easy on him

[Grizzly]

4 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

This seems to be an accurate analysis of what happened there.

But we have to thank the fact that there was corruption in the States that American DA's got interested in investigating FIFA, since it was in their jurisdiction. I think without the US justice system reacting things would not have changed at all these last 2 years.

You really believe the Americans thought: the USSF and Chuck Blazer are corrupt lets investigate? If so why have we heard almost nothing about the US' role in either the FIFA or CONCACAF system? Even the fall guy Blazer has hardly received any attention in this. And do you think the FBI did not know what he was doing for years? Even a decade ago you only had to look at Blazer's own photos on his website and his corruption jumped off the screen at you. I think I even posted some of that stuff on the forum here. He was obviously doing what he was permitted to do in a way that was authorized and pleased the US authorities. 

The reforms and criminal charges in FIFA and CONCACAF have nothing to do with fighting corruption and everything to do with changing who controls the corruption. The days of Caribbean and African countries having a lot of power in FIFA are over to be replaced by the strong and rich western nations gaining control over the corrupt system the way it was intended to work. For example, now countries like Russia and Qatar will no longer be able to bribe their way to hosting the World Cup and the path will be clear for countries like Germany and Spain to bribe their way to the World Cup just like they did in 1982 and 2006. Fifa was just as corrupt back then and everyone knew it including the FBI but the corruption was working they way it was supposed to so the "powers that be" were fine with it.

I don't know whether or not Mont Vic is corrupt but let me also suggest that even if he is not all that support from the strong countries in CONCACAF was not free and he will be required to pay back the support. Not to mention the shady disqualification of his main Caribbean rival. But to paraphrase a guy from Trinidad I spoke when Jack was in charge, from a Canadian perspective it is better to have our guy leading the system of corruption than someone else's.  

[SthMelbRed]

When Spain, Germany, or even Russia, bribe their way into hosting the World Cup, everyone accepts it because there is the thinnest veneer of justification that the suits can point at when scrutinized. Everybody acknowledges it with a wink and a shrug. Giving it to Qatar, though, was basically 24 guys saying that they were going to take the dirty money without even the smallest fig leaf of legitimate cover. They had the arrogance to hold two fingers up to the world, in the mistaken belief that they were untouchable. They flew too close to the sun, full stop.

[Vince193]

Vic should use his new powers to tell that volcano in Costa Rica to simmer down.

[CanadianSoccerFan]

Even though Russia bought 2018 I don't really mind them hosting it.  For the growth of the game it's probably a good thing.  England and Spain don't really need any boost in football or even football stadium infrastructure.  Russia does.

 

 

[SuperCanuck]

On 12 May, 2016 at 8:55 AM, Ansem said:

I think the CONCACAF Refereeing will be MASSIVELY reviewed!  

Also, harsh sanctions against countries that can't control their crowds. (lasers, urine bags, racist chants...etc...)

What would CONCACAF be without bags of urine?