Canadian Premier League joins CONCACAF League

[Kent]

15 hours ago, Initial B said:

One thing that galls me about this format is that the Caribbean Club Champion gets an automatic spot in CCL (which isn't listed in your second pot, Kent). There is no way they deserve that - they should be forced to play in the CL round.

They were missed in my second pot because I was giving a hypothetical of what the breakdown should have been based on the CONCACAF Club Index. The highest rated Caribbean spot is only good enough for pot B in the CONCACAF League. The next 2 Caribbean spots are only good enough for the preliminary round. And the fourth Caribbean spot drops off the map completely (along with Nicaragua's 2nd spot). That's all based strictly on results.

[Obinna]

6 minutes ago, lazlo_80 said:

late to this. Has anyone come out and explained why? Or how this decision was made?

The decision was made to create utter confusion and turn off as many people as possible.

[Kent]

10 hours ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

Suspect this means that they are using CONCACAF League dates for some of the earlier Voyageurs Cup games that FCE, the Forge and Valour have byes for.

That could have been a somewhat reasonable explanation, but the first round of the Voyageurs Cup is May 15th and May 22nd. Even the second round is June 5th and June 12th, while CONCACAF League begins in July.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Beat me to it. I was just about to post that. Totally stumped on what the rationale could be at this point.

[nfitz]

Whole thing seems great to me! I'd even think some of the CPL clubs are relieved that they don't have to worry about travelling to Central America (or South America!) in July - I'd think that they have enough on their plate during the first season.

We should focus on the positives rather than the incessant whining about how very mintor details could/should be different.

Edited February 13, 2019 by nfitz

[Obinna]

30 minutes ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

Beat me to it. I was just about to post that. Totally stumped on what the rationale could be at this point.

There is no rationale. Or, there is but we'll never know due to lack of transparency.

Either way, bad look for the CSA.

Why do they always have to make things so damn complicated? 

Why couldn't they just give the spot to the team with the most points at a given point in the season? It's so simple it is infuriating.

If Calvary (for example) are in first place but are not in the position to participate in CL, just give the spot to the next club in line. Simple.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

2 minutes ago, Obinna said:

...Why couldn't they just give the spot to the team with the most points at a given point in the season? It's so simple it is infuriating...

It should only take 7 league schedule dates to get to a point that could be used to gauge that reasonably fairly (all can have three home and away against the other six teams), which should be doable by the end of June at the very latest. I don't think they can do home and away for the Forge, FCE and Valour more quickly than that unless they are squeezing in weeknight games between those three to identify an entrant by the end of May to meet a deadline set by CONCACAF? Then they would need to use the two dates for the first qualifying round of the Voyageurs Cup. I guess the reason that they might need to move more quickly than seven rounds of weekend games is that the CONCACAF entrant will need a reasonable lead time to know where they are heading within Canada to make suitable arrangements.

[Obinna]

9 minutes ago, BringBackTheBlizzard said:

It should only take 7 league schedule dates to get to a point that could be used to gauge that reasonably fairly (all can have three home and away against the other six teams), which should be doable by the end of June at the very latest. I don't think they can do home and away for the Forge, FCE and Valour more quickly than that unless they are squeezing in weeknight games between those three to identify an entrant by the end of May to meet a deadline set by CONCACAF? Then they would need to use the two dates for the first qualifying round of the Voyageurs Cup. I guess the reason that they might need to move more quickly than seven rounds of weekend games is that the CONCACAF entrant will need a reasonable lead time to know where they are heading within Canada to make suitable arrangements.

If they need to rush to find a representative by May, they could literally put 7 names in a hat right now and draw one. It would certainly be more fair and make more sense.

 

[to70]

The fairest way would have been to give the spot to the 1st place at the half-way point of the season or at the a certain date in July. The way this has been handled has me thinking whether all franchises are equal partners or do Hamilton and Winnipeg control the league.

[Initial B]

2 hours ago, Kent said:

Disclaimer: The paragraph about the president and friends is meant to point out that this whole thing smells. Of course I don't know who exactly is behind these decisions. It's possible Vic wanted something fair but couldn't get it past a Caribbean block. Or there could be any other number of sources of this confusing decision. But it looks bad to me.

There are 28 nations in Caribbean Football Union.

There are 13 nations in the rest of Concacaf combined.

The math is pretty obvious. Nothing in this federation gets done without CFU approval, which is one of the things any president just has to accommodate. I'm impressed that we were actually able to get a non-CFU president.

Edited February 13, 2019 by Initial B

[CanSuffer]

3 hours ago, to70 said:

The fairest way would have been to give the spot to the 1st place at the half-way point of the season or at the a certain date in July. 

Pointing out the obvious : That would not be fair if not every team has played the same number of games or even if the schedule is not balanced and teams have played different sets of opponents 

[to70]

31 minutes ago, CanSuffer said:

Pointing out the obvious : That would not be fair if not every team has played the same number of games or even if the schedule is not balanced and teams have played different sets of opponents 

If under the current proposal there is no guarantee that that the 3 teams involved would play each other the same number of home and away games by the deadline.

[Ams1984]

23 minutes ago, to70 said:

If under the current proposal there is no guarantee that that the 3 teams involved would play each other the same number of home and away games by the deadline.

This is a completely laughable solution. I don’t know whether it was the CPL or the CSA who came up with this sophomoric foolishness, but if they were truly pressed for time, and if for some reason they couldn’t just pick the league leader at a certain date (again, maybe they were pressed to make a quick decision) then they should’ve simply done a quick draw, picking a club at random (out of the seven). 

[lazlo_80]

that's the strangest part. This entire controversy was so easily avoidable.

[DJT]

55 minutes ago, CanSuffer said:

Pointing out the obvious : That would not be fair if not every team has played the same number of games or even if the schedule is not balanced and teams have played different sets of opponents 

Rather than using the league standings at a certain date, they could use the league standings after each team has played a certain number of games (ie. once you have played that number of games, any future games do not count for CL qualification). The schedule may not be balanced in terms of playing against the same opponents within those set number of games, but it's still better than what they have done.

[DrummingInMySleep]

I think the main failing of the CSA is communication. They are not stupid people and have things on their desk that we don’t- and shouldn’t- have access to. There must be other factors that we can’t see. They might even be made public going forward but I’m sure there was a better way to communicate the rationale with the announcement.

Although I would have preferred the CPL sit out The League this year and be better prepared to both allocate our spot AND actually perform  in it, clearly, CONCACAF was going to change the format this year regardless and if we didn’t claim our spot, we would have had to wait for the next reformatting. 

I would also guess that they felt they could go back to the well on the first-come-first-served logic from The V-Cup table for concerns over competitive balance with the more intuitive picking of a mid-season front runner. Maybe they can tweak the schedule (which also explains the delay) to make sure ‘The Haves’ play each other home and away in short order.  But again, whatever the reason is, it should have been made plain. 

[yellowsweatygorilla]

I also really wish there was more independent media covering the game in this country. Hard to imagine reporters not getting on the case of the CSA if this happened anywhere else in the world.

[rob.notenboom]

32 minutes ago, yellowsweatygorilla said:

I also really wish there was more independent media covering the game in this country. Hard to imagine reporters not getting on the case of the CSA if this happened anywhere else in the world.

This. 

[Keegan]

3 hours ago, yellowsweatygorilla said:

I also really wish there was more independent media covering the game in this country. Hard to imagine reporters not getting on the case of the CSA if this happened anywhere else in the world.

That’s a major problem.. the CPL owns all the top soccer journalists.  And guys they don’t, like Neil Davidson, are too clueless to write about anything of substance .. I think ND is still trying to figure out why Akinola doesn’t have a Canadian leaf next to his name on V cup lineups, now there’s some real controversy /s.

Edit: Others like the guys at TSN, Molinaro etc. tow the line.  I’d like to see Brennan go off on TV..

One guy who has been good for the odd rant is Sid Sexeiro but he is a sort of part timer.

Edited February 14, 2019 by Keegan

[Kent]

11 hours ago, Keegan said:

That’s a major problem.. the CPL owns all the top soccer journalists.  And guys they don’t, like Neil Davidson, are too clueless to write about anything of substance .. I think ND is still trying to figure out why Akinola doesn’t have a Canadian leaf next to his name on V cup lineups, now there’s some real controversy /s.

Edit: Others like the guys at TSN, Molinaro etc. tow the line.  I’d like to see Brennan go off on TV..

One guy who has been good for the odd rant is Sid Sexeiro but he is a sort of part timer.

Yeah, maybe we should be emailing/tweeting Sid instead of the CSA. Get him to rant about it to put pressure on them.

[dyslexic nam]

Sid's rants are like a guilty pleasure.  I realize he can get a bit silly, but I still love him. 

EDIT:  For the record, I would totally be on board with getting his interest piqued on this issue.  He may be over the top, but he can raise awareness about an issue.  And this does seem somewhat rant-worthy - at least to push the CSA into defending its decision.  If I was better at the Twitter, I would do it, but alas I am a bit of a luddite.

Edited February 14, 2019 by dyslexic nam

[Kent]

I've just though of a problem (not related to 3 team fiasco) that seems to be uniquely Canadian the way things are set up right now.

All of Mexico's spots are in CCL, and all of USA's spots are in CCL, and the Caribbean spots for CL and CCL are determined by the same tournament, so none of those areas have this same problem.

Let's say York 9 wins the league in 2019. That qualifies them for the 2020 CL. The following year they will be competing in the CL and the Voyageurs Cup at the same time, which are both effectively qualifiers for the 2021 CCL. They could potentially qualify for the 2021 CCL two times, at roughly the same time.

Now, with Mexican teams or American teams, they are able to qualify twice, but then it's easy enough to just send the next team in line. It seems a bit more messy for Canada. The best spot to qualify under is through the Voyageurs Cup because it's seeded in pot A, which means York 9 (in this case) should be given that spot. But then who goes in their place for the spot they earned through the CONCACAF League? It doesn't really make sense to send the Voyageurs Cup runner-up (because the Voyageurs Cup is already sending York 9 to the CCL), and it doesn't really make sense for the league to send its runner-up (because they didn't play in the CL). So does the 7th placed team from CL get the second spot? If that's the case, then York 9 winning the Voyageurs Cup final denies Canada from using it's 2nd spot.

Any thoughts on this? Is there an obvious solution I'm missing? Am I overthinking things and we'll probably just send 2nd place from one of those competitions?

[baulderdash77]

I imagine that if a CanPL team wins the Canadian Championship and the CanPL championship they will take the direct CCL spot and the 2nd place CanPL team will take the CONCACAF league spot.

[Alex D]

1 hour ago, Kent said:

I've just though of a problem (not related to 3 team fiasco) that seems to be uniquely Canadian the way things are set up right now.

All of Mexico's spots are in CCL, and all of USA's spots are in CCL, and the Caribbean spots for CL and CCL are determined by the same tournament, so none of those areas have this same problem.

Let's say York 9 wins the league in 2019. That qualifies them for the 2020 CL. The following year they will be competing in the CL and the Voyageurs Cup at the same time, which are both effectively qualifiers for the 2021 CCL. They could potentially qualify for the 2021 CCL two times, at roughly the same time.

Now, with Mexican teams or American teams, they are able to qualify twice, but then it's easy enough to just send the next team in line. It seems a bit more messy for Canada. The best spot to qualify under is through the Voyageurs Cup because it's seeded in pot A, which means York 9 (in this case) should be given that spot. But then who goes in their place for the spot they earned through the CONCACAF League? It doesn't really make sense to send the Voyageurs Cup runner-up (because the Voyageurs Cup is already sending York 9 to the CCL), and it doesn't really make sense for the league to send its runner-up (because they didn't play in the CL). So does the 7th placed team from CL get the second spot? If that's the case, then York 9 winning the Voyageurs Cup final denies Canada from using it's 2nd spot.

Any thoughts on this? Is there an obvious solution I'm missing? Am I overthinking things and we'll probably just send 2nd place from one of those competitions?

It would have to be the CL winner and V Cup runner up qualifying for the CCL with the CPL champ in the CL. This is an interesting loop hole that would see 3 Canadian clubs in continental play every time we win the CL. Concafun!

[Guest]

Here is another more obvious problem: how is a CPL team supposed to be ready to play in a competition that starts over 2 months prior to the start of the CPL season? Are players supposed to show up for pre-season training OVER TWO MONTHS EARLY?! And how do they get match fit? And stay match fit? A mini-season of friendlies? Against whom? And how do you get sharp playing matches where the result counts for nothing?

Edited February 16, 2019 by dsqpr