Ottawa CPL Club

[BuzzAndSting]

59 minutes ago, Ansem said:

In other unrelated news...

News of the lawsuit comes one day after the National Capital Commission told the Rendezvous LeBreton partners to get their act together, or it would look for other options to develop the site.

What does this have to do with the CPL?

[Red and White]

27 minutes ago, BuzzAndSting said:

What does this have to do with the CPL?

There was a time when Melnyk likely would have been interested in CPL, back when he was pursuing MLS for Ottawa. That's long gone though, and changed drastically.

[Ansem]

1 hour ago, BuzzAndSting said:

What does this have to do with the CPL?

LeBreton Flats might be available to other proposals if Melnyk doesn't get his act together.

CPL did imply that other investors were interested in CPL for Ottawa

[BuzzAndSting]

2 hours ago, Ansem said:

LeBreton Flats might be available to other proposals if Melnyk doesn't get his act together.

CPL did imply that other investors were interested in CPL for Ottawa

That’s quite the stretch!

[Protega]

There's no way he or anyone else would be bringing a CPL team here - there's nowhere feasible for a team to play.  Plus, they would be looking to split fans with Fury, which already doesn't have stellar attendance.

[shamrock]

12 hours ago, Protega said:

There's no way he or anyone else would be bringing a CPL team here - there's nowhere feasible for a team to play.  Plus, they would be looking to split fans with Fury, which already doesn't have stellar attendance.

Agree. I think they're just trying to put a little pressure on the Fury brass. 

[Initial B]

I often wondered if it was possible for them to build a Soccer stadium on top of the arena plan they had for Lebreton. The soccer field would be a green roof which would help with LEED certification. The foot print of the Canadian Tire Centre could fit a 100m by 60m field with some side seats. You wouldn't be able to fit end seating, but you could probably shoehorn 8000 people into a cozy Venue. It wouldn't be all that high either if you dig deep enough so the arena rink surface is well below ground level. 

[Protega]

8 hours ago, Initial B said:

I often wondered if it was possible for them to build a Soccer stadium on top of the arena plan they had for Lebreton. The soccer field would be a green roof which would help with LEED certification. The foot print of the Canadian Tire Centre could fit a 100m by 60m field with some side seats. You wouldn't be able to fit end seating, but you could probably shoehorn 8000 people into a cozy Venue. It wouldn't be all that high either if you dig deep enough so the arena rink surface is well below ground level. 

That thing won't be built for at least 10 years, likely longer.

[CDNFootballer]

Not a mention of Canadian Premier League in Julian D Guzman's 3 year outlook for the Fury :

https://the11.ca/jdg-on-rebuilding-the-fury-you-want-people-who-are-well-in-tune-with-what-the-league-offers/

And, now that three more years is a thing, where does de Guzman envision the club in December of 2021?

“For me, it would be the chance to win a trophy, two trophies, whether it’s in the Canadian Championship or USL… If I was to leave the club in three years, I want to leave this club with a trophy.”

 

I get the feeling Ottawa Fury likely won't be joining CPL in the next few years, hope I'm wrong.

[Red and White]

3 hours ago, CDNFootballer said:

"For me, it would be the chance to win a trophy, two trophies, whether it’s in the Canadian Championship or USL… If I was to leave the club in three years, I want to leave this club with a trophy.”

I get the feeling Ottawa Fury likely won't be joining CPL in the next few years, hope I'm wrong.

This may be JDG's viewpoint more than Fury's. For some reason, he doesn't seem supportive of CPL - encouraging players to avoid it and so forth.

Fury FO are purely business oriented and have little football knowledge. They'll join CPL when they're convinced it's a safer business venture than USL.

[shamrock]

This guy has never said anything beyond cliches. Anyone on this board could have assembled that squad last year, just pick up all Canadians that are available. They tried that and now we read he wants players who understand the league, iow: Americans. Great philosophy.?

[KW519]

Does JDG have a stake in Ottawa? The injection of $ in USL might be a reason he's turning his nose up to the CPL, or maybe they still think their lack of club infrastructure and support will get them into MLS. Regardless of his reasoning Ottawa is a poor run club and i wish them nothing but failure in USL. 

The #1 draft pick and Halifax's first ever signing are both from Ottawa, and the Fury are over here with a 10 man roster deciding which way they want to go after 7 or 8 seasons smfh! They would be front runners in the CPL and JDG would have his trophy within 3 seasons.  

I've said it before and i'll say it again, if someone with deep pockets enters the Ottawa market they have a real opportunity to capture the Fury fans if they do things right out there and essentially force the Fury to fold

[dyslexic nam]

I don't wish the Fury ill - I just struggle to see how this is the right move.  I am sure there is a "rose coloured glasses" factor at play, but in April of next year there will be a ton of media exposure for the new league.  Anyone looking for non-MLS Canadian soccer will bump into CPL.  In that sort of environment, Ottawa will really struggle to generate much interest.

I guess it is a local phenomenon, so the Fury just need to keep the local fanbase interested, but hard to see how even that get sustained at current levels when there is something much more exciting going on in the rest of Canada.  Maybe a deep championship run would dispel that idea and excite the local fans, but over the medium term it seems like interest in continued USL participation would have to be a downward curve. 

[Kent]

1 hour ago, dyslexic nam said:

I don't wish the Fury ill

I don't really either, except against CPL competition in the Voyageurs Cup. I would LOVE to see a CPL team knockout Ottawa. I'd also like for the CPL to have higher average attendance and more media coverage than Ottawa gets. I guess for my attendance point I do wish a bit more ill on Ottawa. I wouldn't mind if there was a bit of a backlash to the USL decision and they had a bit of an attendance dip next year.

[rob.notenboom]

I think it’s fairly telling that right after the ‘Fury to stay in USL’ announcement, there were several talking points being repeated by a number of people with connections to the Fury org. One was that the Fury were building something. A second was that they would have to decimate their roster to join CanPL. A third was that they would have to cut their wage bill significantly. A fourth was that the CanPL level would be L1O at best. A fifth was that the league would be billeting players and not providing them with housing. 

The first two were effectively debunked by the Fury releasing 60% of their roster and only retaining 20% for certain with the other 20% to be potentially re-signed after negotiations. The various loan agreements kind of muddy the waters here, but that’s certainly not keeping in line with the concern over pulling apart the roster. 

There isn’t enough publicly available information to evaluate the third one. Yet. But it might be answered when we get a clearer picture of the fourth. If CanPL ends up having a level above L1O, and if CanPL teams on paper would be similar to and competitive with Ottawa, then either Ottawa is significantly overspending, they are poor at roster building, or the disparity between wage bills is not nearly as great as was suggested (or a combination of the above three).

As for the fifth, that remains to be seen but that allegation does not match anything I’ve been told about the situation by representatives from the clubs. But as always, seeing is believing. 

Edited December 7, 2018 by rob.notenboom

[Grandbloke]

12 hours ago, Red and White said:

Fury FO are purely business oriented and have little football knowledge. They'll join CPL when they're convinced it's a safer business venture than USL.

Correct me if I’m mistaken, but my understanding is that Canada Soccer has the power to deny the Fury permission to play in the USL.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

57 minutes ago, KW519 said:

...They would be front runners in the CPL and JDG would have his trophy within 3 seasons...

They appear to have stockpiled a lot of USL level Canadian talent last year to try to achieve that outcome, but then if sources close to their front office are to believed appear to have been turned off by a business plan that they claim would have made it impossible to keep that sort of quality of roster together in a CanPL context. We'll soon have a much clearer picture of how strong the CanPL rosters are going to be and how much money is likely to have been spent on salaries to assemble them.

[ironcub14]

7 hours ago, KW519 said:

I've said it before and i'll say it again, if someone with deep pockets enters the Ottawa market they have a real opportunity to capture the Fury fans if they do things right out there and essentially force the Fury to fold

This is the kind of thing somebody who knows a few Ottawa fans off the V's forum, the CanPL Discord and Twitter might say. It reflects unawareness of just how much the Fury is embedded within both serious and casual footy fans in Ottawa-Gatineau, and how little of an appetite or demand there is for 2 professional footy clubs in the National Capital Region. Not counting FC Gatineau obviously. And I say this as somebody who very much wanted to see the Fury in CPL for 2019.

Edited December 7, 2018 by ironcub14

[shamrock]

If they were concerned about the lower wage bill, why didn't they take the money they didn't have tp spend and use it on an academy like a real football club?

Their arguments were bogus, if anything they could have won the first 2 championships. We all know level won't be USL from the start but it can grow (like it did in MLS and also in USL). There must be something else in play. 

[Ansem]

17 hours ago, CDNFootballer said:

Not a mention of Canadian Premier League in Julian D Guzman's 3 year outlook for the Fury :

https://the11.ca/jdg-on-rebuilding-the-fury-you-want-people-who-are-well-in-tune-with-what-the-league-offers/

And, now that three more years is a thing, where does de Guzman envision the club in December of 2021?

“For me, it would be the chance to win a trophy, two trophies, whether it’s in the Canadian Championship or USL… If I was to leave the club in three years, I want to leave this club with a trophy.”

 

I get the feeling Ottawa Fury likely won't be joining CPL in the next few years, hope I'm wrong.

How adorable...JDG and OSEG are assuming that the CSA will let them play in USL for 3 more years ?

[KW519]

57 minutes ago, ironcub14 said:

This is the kind of thing somebody who knows maybe 3 Ottawa fans off the V's forum, the CanPL Discord and Twitter would say. It reflects a complete unawareness and lack of knowledge of just how much the Fury is embedded within both serious and casual footy fans in Ottawa-Gatineau, and how little of an appetite or demand there is for 2 professional footy clubs in the National Capital Region. Not counting FC Gatineau obviously. And I say this as somebody who very much wanted to see the Fury in CPL for 2019.

 Greater Ottawa has a population of 1.3 million people. 4618 people attended Fury home games on average last season in a 24k capacity stadium, so less than 1% of the population consider the Fury embedded enough to show up on a regular basis. Unless the Fury is drawing support from other metro areas and getting lots of views from areas outside of Ottawa those numbers are pretty weak and can be easily surpassed. Not trying to discredit you loyal fans, there's no club without you at the end of the day. But the opportunity is real for the right person willing to invest some money 

[Ansem]

15 minutes ago, KW519 said:

 Greater Ottawa has a population of 1.3 million people. 4618 people attended Fury home games on average last season in a 24k capacity stadium, so less than 1% of the population consider the Fury embedded enough to show up on a regular basis. Unless the Fury is drawing support from other metro areas and getting lots of views from areas outside of Ottawa those numbers are pretty weak and can be easily surpassed. Not trying to discredit you loyal fans, there's no club without you at the end of the day. But the opportunity is real for the right person willing to invest some money 

A scenario where CPL 1st season is a resounding success and that there are indeed investors looking at bringing a CPL team to Ottawa, that puts pressure on the Fury. As you pointed out, the fringe numbers supporting the Fury doesn't seem to worry the league who publicly said that they want Ottawa and that other groups were interested.

I don't think there's a scenario of 2 Ottawa teams (USL and CPL) at the same time.

More likely, the CSA sees that CPL had a successful year and that the "level of play" question has been answered between the 2 leagues. The CSA moves in and ends their sanction in USL. The CSA will take decisions according to what's best to its own interest. You can bet that they cannot support having the capital shut out of CPL just because... I think they end the sanctioning leaving the Fury with the following options

• Join CPL
• Join L10
• Sell to CPL investors
• Fold

Ultimately, both CPL and CSA gets what they want. Fury might have the argument that CPL still doesn't exist on their side but after the 2019 season, the CSA pulls the plug in my opinion.

Edited December 7, 2018 by Ansem

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

You were convinced the CSA would pull their sanctioning a few months ago, but it didn't happen. Maybe at some point it's time to accept that the existing pro teams are grandfathered in for as long as they want to be in the manner described by Victor Montagliani a few years ago?

[Ansem]

5 minutes ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

You were convinced the CSA would pull their sanctioning a few months ago, but it didn't happen. Maybe at some point it's time to accept that the existing pro teams are grandfathered in for as long as they want to be in the manner described by Victor Montagliani a few years ago?

Funny as the CSA still hasn't confirmed their sanctioning yet...Don't forget that the way the Fury blindsided both CPL and the CSA most definitely contributed in them getting this 2019 extension (which is a formality but the CSA wasn't thrilled either)

You have no basis or proof of what you're saying. Ultimately, it's the CSA's call and it will do what's in its own interest. A successful CPL league trumps the personal preferences of 1 club.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

No basis or proof beyond on the record quotes from Victor Montagliani? People in Ottawa close to the Fury front office were stating that the decision not to join was made at least as far back as June, so the blindsided thing is not established fact.