Ottawa CPL Club

[Admin]

1 hour ago, grande said:

 

I'm not panicking yet, but if the salary cap really is $500k, what's the point?

Nothing indicates this is true.

Even if it was true.... it would be a place to start.

We have to start somewhere. 

[rob.notenboom]

1 hour ago, grande said:

I have to say, it feels like a failure of the league to me. It was CPL's and CSA's job to sell the Fury on the league and, clearly, they were unable to. This has, more than anything, shaken my belief of what the CPL will be; I was sure it would be better by all measures to the USL, but if our one and only USL team isn't willing to jump ship well... where does that leave us?

I'm not panicking yet, but if the salary cap really is $500k, what's the point?

It could very well be the case that the league botched this. However, what we have now is the Fury’s side being pushed out there through multiple people and the league’s side being explained by no one. I find it difficult to assess the situation when we’ve really got one side of the story, and a second hand side of that story as well. But you very well could be right. 

Ignoring the salary cap for a minute, with the players available and with some reasonable assumptions about which groups of those players would move to CanPL from wherever they are, I think a very strong case can be made that he teams next year will be mid to lower table USL level. I’d love for it to be higher, but with the players available, I believe that’s where we will be. Oddly, that’s where Ottawa is right now. 

The salary cap will not be $500K. It will be higher. But I have a feeling we will need to get this through leaks and not from the league directly. 

[Initial B]

Day 1 Fury SSH here.

At first I was disappointed with the team decision, but now I'm going to take a wait-and-see approach to next season. The Canadian Championships will be the litmus test in terms of quality. If the Div2 Fury defeat the Div1 CPL clubs easily, then that wouldn't be a good look for the new league and probably justifies OSEG's decision. If the Fury crash out against the CPL clubs, then the quality of play is probably higher and I would expect the Fury to look long and hard at joining the CPL in 2020.

[edit: Heck, if once of the Regional Div3 teams like AS Blainville manage to beat a CPL club during the tournament, that might even be worse.]

Then again, part of me wonders if there is a 3-year no-move financial penalty clause in the USL like there was in the NASL (hence why the Fury left in 2017, because they bought into the league in 2014). Maybe they can't leave USL until 2020 for that reason.

As for me, I'm going to support the Fury regardless of how ticked off I get with their lack of quality because we need as many avenues for Canadian content to play as possible.

Edited September 6, 2018 by Initial B

[Shortdutchcanuck]

40 minutes ago, Benjamin Massey said:

To have a domestic soccer league.

And then grow it into something bigger.  

If soccer is really on the rise in this country (as we on this site have repeatedly argued) it will grow and improve.

How many of us argued in the past we just wanted a damn Canadian league to support, period?

And now we have one some are already saying it's not going to be good enough to support?

Support it, and in a few years it will be good enough.

[Admin]

2 minutes ago, Shortdutchcanuck said:

And then grow it into something bigger.  

 

 

This is the part that is missing from almost EVERY single conversation.

Whatever your staring point is.  Whatever criticism you want to level.  

WHERE THE F&^%$ING HELL IS THE LONG TERM VISION OF PEOPLE.

[ChrisinOrleans]

17 hours ago, Kent said:

Can I get explicit opinions from Ottawa fans on this. What would you rather:

1. Keep the team together and stay in USL?

 Or

2. Split the team apart, starting over again at a likely lower level, in the CPL?

I live in Orléans and hit up Ottawa games about 5 - 6 times a year. 

I'd rather them be in USL than a pub league with kids who played kick-the-ball once or twice in college or university. CanPL is looking worse and worse, and my original enthusiasm for both joining this forum and supporting the league is wavering daily.

Also, CanPL has yet to offer messaging in French and their translation is even worse than the government auto-message you get on your phone when a storm is coming.  

[ChrisinOrleans]

25 minutes ago, Initial B said:

As for me, I'm going to support the Fury regardless of how ticked off I get with their lack of quality because we need as many avenues for Canadian content to play as possible.

Ditto. I don't care how slow Jérémy Gagnon-Laparé is on the recovery, or how injured Maxim Tissot gets (again). They're my players and I will go support the Fury. 

Also you can finally buy wine to drink in the stands now, so Place TD has a loyal customer for life. 

[Admin]

1 minute ago, ChrisinOrleans said:

 

I'd rather them be in USL than a pub league with kids who played kick-the-ball once or twice in college or university. CanPL is looking worse and worse, and my original enthusiasm for both joining this forum and supporting the league is wavering daily.

 

It will not likely be better than USL to start, but this idea of flipping the bit on the league and calling it a L1O  or a pub league is ridiculous.

If Ottawa stays in the USL, fine, but no need to start this kind of thing when it isn't true.

This is a mistake and is bad for all sides.

 

[Unnamed Trialist]

Ottawa getting its back up about the CPL is senseless, and some of these posts are very hypocritical. 

Why should Ottawa take apart its team to play in the CPL?

Well, you've done it before, for countless reasons, without coming up with such defensive arguments. How much of the team that played a NASL final remains? Ottawa, like any other team, has ripped itself to shreds when it was considered convenient. No point getting upset if the CPL means something similar.

I didn't see such bile and defensiveness from Ottawa fans when they moved to USL, a league with a lot of things inferior to NASL (uneven scheduling, competitive level, interest in rival teams, prestige, television rights, international projection via well-known players).

Accepting that we cannot drop the salary cap ridiculously low just because some clubs (maybe 2) are not doing their work (which I obviously do not agree with), here are the reasons to join the CPL

-it shows you have character to get in on something from day one, instead of playing the fear game and holding back. That is what being an entrepreneur with vision means, taking calculated risks.

-it shows you recognize that Canadian rivalries will make your home game experience better, instead of getting all excited about playing a team no one has heard of from western Pennsylvania. Ottawa DOES care about beating Hamilton. Or you can get all excited about Loudon United FC visiting next year (yeah, look it up, you are arguing in favour of playing Loudon!).

-it shows you are sharing in a long-time vision shared by Canadian fans across the country, for a Canadian league supporting Canadian players. You are part of it, instead of standing off with your arms crossed. Not mavericks, not innovative, just bunkered down and out of touch.

-it shows you are listening to your fan base, and especially supporters groups, who if you ask the hard questions, will want in. Supporters who will be able to have meaningful away travel in the current set-up. Fans that recognize the difference between playing a rival you can properly "hate", instead of an entire season of rivals you are totally indifferent towards. I've watched USL with WhitecapsII. Visits from OKC Energy got us hyped all week, right.

-it shows you are really serious about winning a D1 league, since CPL offers what USL cannot not. Winning USL garners zero reward; it is quite probable that the CSA will lobby for the winner of the CPL to get a potential 2nd Concacaf Champions League spot for Canada. So you are going to renounce that? With a real chance given your experience to take the league in the early years?

-it shows you recognize that the league is going to evolve, and improve over time, and that your expertise and the work you have put into the club can reap benefits that will be appreciated by Canadian fans across the country. It also shows that even with a lower salary cap, all that know-how in running a club will still allow you to be a step ahead of the rest.

-you might decide to do a cool new logo, and a new set of merchandising; you would share in a league merchandising deal, and may appear on national tv, and will be written about across the country in the general and specialised press. You will visit Victoria and Halifax and they'll care, instead of not a word being written about your visit to Pittsburgh or how thrilling it was to play with the stadium 12% full on an American football field on the campus of Lehigh University in lovely Saucon Valley, Pennsylvania.

But hey, if Ottawa owners are listening to the fans harping about just one single issue, the salary cap, and how much work it was to get these players, and if we can't have them all playing at the same salary then we prefer to play Louisville, then let them stay in the USL. The USL  is just a muddy eddy on the fringe of North American soccer, owned by an American, where even B teams of MSL sides play, and where the dream of winning is almost an afterthought.

[This post is just to overstate the argument a bit, to help steer  our Ottawa brothers back in line]

 

Edited September 6, 2018 by Unnamed Trialist

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Latest on the justification of the decision from Ottawa (by way of FuryFanatic):

 

[shermanator]

Checking in the morning after. I'm not happy about the news. I'm not happy about a lot of opinions expressed via Tweets which have been misconstrued as insights from the inner workings of the CPL.

However, this morning, it really doesn't matter to me.

Those of us with CPL clubs to support need to move on from the decision, and not let it affect what we can do to build the league. For the first time since I started following soccer, I have a local professional club. I have away games I can go to where I can yell at the opposition for 90 minutes, and then have beer with the opposing supporters after the game. I have CPL coaches bantering me on Twitter and then complementing our new SG logo via DM. I can see the momentum building among the supporters scene, where people who had no interest in Calgary Foothills want to get in on the ground level with Cavalry, and that excites me.

As with a lot of things, I'm not going to let a short-sighted decision in Ottawa affect what we do in Calgary. And neither should those in Victoria, or Edmonton, or Winnipeg, or Hamilton, or York, or Halifax.

[Kent]

49 minutes ago, ChrisinOrleans said:

Also, CanPL has yet to offer messaging in French and their translation is even worse than the government auto-message you get on your phone when a storm is coming.  

When you say "messaging", do you mean things like their twitter feed? Other social media? I don't speak French, but it appears like the website at least is translated (possibly poorly). Does USL do a better job for Francophones? I'm sure it's a lot easier to give a free pass to USL than CPL, because CPL should know better, but still. A start is a start.

[lazlo_80]

1 hour ago, rob.notenboom said:

It could very well be the case that the league botched this. However, what we have now is the Fury’s side being pushed out there through multiple people and the league’s side being explained by no one. I find it difficult to assess the situation when we’ve really got one side of the story, and a second hand side of that story as well. But you very well could be right. 

Ignoring the salary cap for a minute, with the players available and with some reasonable assumptions about which groups of those players would move to CanPL from wherever they are, I think a very strong case can be made that he teams next year will be mid to lower table USL level. I’d love for it to be higher, but with the players available, I believe that’s where we will be. Oddly, that’s where Ottawa is right now. 

The salary cap will not be $500K. It will be higher. But I have a feeling we will need to get this through leaks and not from the league directly. 

Very good point Rob. Speaking as someone who obviously really wants this to succeed and has been following every update with baited breath the frustration for me stems from what was said to begin with by Clanachan, Bierne and others versus the reports we have (which sadly tend to be from leaks and such) of what the financial realities of this league are. To go from a league as Milton reported with a cap of 1.5 to a cap that’s half of that and will likely yield a lower level USL team is frankly, quite disappointing. Also I’m extremely wary of “but it will build into something more” at this point. These teams haven’t even started to play yet and we’re already supposed to be anticipating what they will become one day? That’s a tough pill to swallow considering the back tracking this league has already done. 

 

Again im a huge fan of this league and will support it regardless but Ottawa not joining the cpl wasn’t about just one team not joining...for me at least it was about realizing this league wasn’t going to be what many of us had been told it was going to be. 

[Unnamed Trialist]

Just now, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

Latest on the justification of the decision from Ottawa (by way of FuryFanatic):

 

[removed post to not give any more credit to the pathetic tone of these tweets]

Edited September 6, 2018 by Unnamed Trialist

[Keegan]

How many Fury players are even signed past this season?  Why are they assuming that their players wants to play USL?  I’m imagining that quite a few guys signed there as a bridge to the new league .. so what now?

Should CPL get a CCL spot as we all expect they will (or at least some route in aside from the voyageurs cup) then this just looks even dumber on Ottawa.  I don’t agree with the cap being too low but also is it a bad thing for a club that is presumably losing money? 

Who do you think is going to get a national tv deal first?  Who is going to get more coverage on Canadian media?  Who is going to develop local and enduring rivalries? 

This is just insane - choosing to stay in a foreign minor league as opposed to a local D1.  It’s not like they’re staying in MLS.. this is a league that seems to turn over half their clubs year after year and their argument is stability?? What stability? You have no major deals, you have nothing and you have to travel all over the USA to play squads that are either trying to make MLS or acting as a farm club to a mls team. Where does that leave you?  No identity, you’re just the loser club in a league of teams that don’t care.  

Does anyone have any doubt that the CPL will be more stable than USL?  There’s no chance we are flipping as many teams as they are.

[youllneverwalkalone]

Sad to see the same old Canadian Soccer bullshit playing out here. Rather than people working together to build something strong, parties are working against each other. How can John Pugh be apart of the CSA and have this happen in such an amateur fashion? Ok, wait, nevermind.

Still, I would have thought the Ottawa group would be welcomed with open arms and accommodations made. I do think all this discussion of salary budget is total bs. As Keegan just said, are any of these Ottawa players are even under contract in 2019? Does the USL has a single player on a multi-year deal?  If anything, I wonder if there was some serious objection to branding, naming, etc. when people say "tear down what we've built."

I do think we, the true believers in the CPL, have a number of questions to deal with:

1. Can we live with a 7 team, 24 game schedule. What's the alternative?

2. Is there any substantial difference between a local $30k domestic player, and an imported $60k domestic player, in terms of product on the field.

3. Not to go all Margaret Atwood here (in vogue though she may be), but shouldn't the founding principle of this league be long-term *Survival*? I think we need to support this by any means necessary. Make the questions raised by Ottawa are good ones that need to be addressed. (Although my guess is that it's something super petty that we're all freaking out about and will laugh our collective asses off later)

4. I do the recruiting in my shop, and I've found first hand that what glitters is not always gold and, 100% of the time, it's better to develop your own people than the chase other people's left-overs. If we do see Pacific FC with 23 locals kids for the Island and BC, most of whom are in the 18-23 range, making $30k per year, *is this a problem or an amazing opportunity?* I think back to Josh Simpson playing out of the U. Of Portland against Millwall for Canada2 and getting signed basically on the spot. Let's keep an open mind

[ChrisinOrleans]

24 minutes ago, Kent said:

When you say "messaging", do you mean things like their twitter feed? Other social media? I don't speak French, but it appears like the website at least is translated (possibly poorly). Does USL do a better job for Francophones? I'm sure it's a lot easier to give a free pass to USL than CPL, because CPL should know better, but still. A start is a start.

USL is worse, but they're American and I don't care. A league that brands itself 'by us, for us' then doesn't include 'us' is what agitates me. 

After the initial launch, there has been zero social media presence in French. Not even for Canada Day (or St-Jean). So like, I want to care, but until they meet the Fury (or Impact), it's hard to do so. 

[Keegan]

It may very well be that CPL wants Ottawa to rebrand and this is their protest.  

To add another point, you have spent the past couple years going all Canadian and in turn you have had Canadian fans support you.  Now you’re shitting on our national leagues start up - how do you think that is going to go over with Canadian fans?  And when those people leave what is your strategy?  Because those left aren’t going to care about Canadian players. 

[Rattler280]

All the vitriol thrown at Ottawa over this is bonkers. Meanwhile of course Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver get a free pass. If the Canadian Premier League isn't going to exist in the 3 biggest media markets in this country, then it won't be existing very long regardless of what the Fury chose to do. How dare they choose not to join the national D1 league! It's pretty damn easy to be the D1 league when there's nothing else to begin with. The Fury made the right call. If CanPL can get up to the standard of the USL then they should absolutely join in. I see nothing indicating that will be the case anytime soon though.

[Admin]

4 minutes ago, Rattler280 said:

All the vitriol thrown at Ottawa over this is bonkers. Meanwhile of course Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver get a free pass. If the Canadian Premier League isn't going to exist in the 3 biggest media markets in this country, then it won't be existing very long regardless of what the Fury chose to do. How dare they choose not to join the national D1 league! It's pretty damn easy to be the D1 league when there's nothing else to begin with. The Fury made the right call. If CanPL can get up to the standard of the USL then they should absolutely join in. I see nothing indicating that will be the case anytime soon though.

What are you doing to support it to make it otherwise?

 

 

[BuzzAndSting]

1 hour ago, ChrisinOrleans said:

I live in Orléans and hit up Ottawa games about 5 - 6 times a year. 

I'd rather them be in USL than a pub league with kids who played kick-the-ball once or twice in college or university. CanPL is looking worse and worse, and my original enthusiasm for both joining this forum and supporting the league is wavering daily.

Also, CanPL has yet to offer messaging in French and their translation is even worse than the government auto-message you get on your phone when a storm is coming.  

Says the guy who wanted to bail on the team after a slow start earlier this season.

[Rattler280]

4 minutes ago, admin said:

What are you doing to support it to make it otherwise?

 

 

Absolutely nothing, I'll just continue to renew my Fury tickets as I have every year. I was hoping for the CanPl to be a massive success and the Fury to hop in at some point, but the amount of crap tossed at Ottawa for a seemingly prudent decision, while there's crickets about Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver has really turned me off it to be honest.

[lazlo_80]

19 minutes ago, Keegan said:

It may very well be that CPL wants Ottawa to rebrand and this is their protest.  

To add another point, you have spent the past couple years going all Canadian and in turn you have had Canadian fans support you.  Now you’re shitting on our national leagues start up - how do you think that is going to go over with Canadian fans?  And when those people leave what is your strategy?  Because those left aren’t going to care about Canadian players. 

You highlight what I think the crux of the split on this board is...

 

Some people think there was a moral “do it for the good of Canadian soccer” that Ottawa should’ve followed. 

Others don’t think that’s the case if the requirements don’t make sense for the club. 

[BuzzAndSting]

13 minutes ago, Rattler280 said:

Meanwhile of course Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver get a free pass.

If you don't understand that then you have a very poor grasp of the soccer landscape in NA.

[Admin]

1 minute ago, Rattler280 said:

Absolutely nothing, I'll just continue to renew my Fury tickets as I have every year. I was hoping for the CanPl to be a massive success and the Fury to hop in at some point, but the amount of crap tossed at Ottawa for a seemingly prudent decision, while there's crickets about Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver has really turned me off it to be honest.

Well, that is exactly what we need people to do, so great. Keep doing it.

We have known since almost day one there would not be teams in those cities. 

Any vitriol being leveled at Ottawa (of which there is little, seems the other way to me) is born of a desire to see them in the league. 

I would not throw that into the same category as the anti CanPL stuff.