Garber's State of the League on Canada

[Unnamed Trialist]

First I'll post the link, and recommend listening. The questions as well are worth it, especially Neil Davidson's. Comments?

There is a lot here and a lot specifically about Canadian players and development. Such as Generation Adidas Canada, and the academy developed players status league-wide.

I think Garber handled it well, but still think: if your paid MLS lawyers can only come up with tendentious and for me dubious argument about why Canadians cannot be domestics in the US (ie, it would discriminate Hondurans) then time to change your lawyers. I mean, a bit more creativity guys. You feel here, in the response to Davidson, that they are trying very hard to make it easy for MLS to say "no", when what they really should be doing is fighting just as hard to make it easy for the MLS, with the US Dept of Labor, to say "yes".

[Gian-Luca]

Thanks for the link. The Neil Davison questions were indeed good. I'm not as confident as Garber that every Canadian player is going to be captured by the rule change but I guess it depends on which CSA-approved youth clubs will qualify in addition to MLS academies.

I hadn't realized Garber previously had cancer - classy of Molinaro to ask him how he was doing health-wise

[Free kick]

i am listening now and have reached the 55th minute.  Yes, the lack of transparency was the question that i was glad to see was asked.  Also the excessive expansion question is another one i was glad to see.   i didn't think that we got an a very detailed answer.  i did learn that we there is allocation of 1.5 mill.  

We learned about the Gen Addidas for Canadians that we had heard read about here.  

What stood out for me about that whole press conference was who was asking the questions and the organizations they represents.  With the exception of Neil and John Molinaro there was none of the major media outlet in North America and in Toronto.  All i heard, were questioners representing small specialized publications or on-line sources with limited reach and audiences.  Or, outlets that i have never heard of.  Granted, many of whom do great job.  But its still disconcerting that you can have an event in Toronto that sells out in three minutes and the kind of people who would be there swarming over a judoka or short track speed skater for a comment on winning an Olympic bronze medal, dont see value in showing up.   It cant be that the sport of judo is easier to understand than the game of soccer.  

And, yet,  there was some information released here.  Unlike similar press gatherings from other sports commissioners.   This speaks to one of the problems the league has in my opinion.  The stories, messages and information  are not getting out.  Had this video not been posted here, i would not have know it existed.