2021 CPL Season General News

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

 

 

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

https://northerntribune.ca/canadian-premier-league-2021-union/

...They’re not considerate of any of the players’ lives. There are players that work second jobs, have families, and it’s not like this league is paying most players a high enough salary that it’s their one-and-only job. If we’re at the bottom of totem as far as priorities goes, then it’s tough to put a product on the field for them week-in and week-out.

Anonymous CPL Player...

 

 

[johnyb]

2 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

https://northerntribune.ca/canadian-premier-league-2021-union/

...They’re not considerate of any of the players’ lives. There are players that work second jobs, have families, and it’s not like this league is paying most players a high enough salary that it’s their one-and-only job. If we’re at the bottom of totem as far as priorities goes, then it’s tough to put a product on the field for them week-in and week-out.

Anonymous CPL Player...

 

 

Contrary to what has been posted/said, for this anonymous CPL Player, it's absolutely about money. Nothing wrong with that, I agree they should have a say and a seat at the table, but I find it dishonest when they say it isn't about money.

Edited July 24, 2021 by johnyb

[narduch]

8 minutes ago, johnyb said:

Contrary to what has been posted/said, for this anonymous CPL Player, it's absolutely about money. Nothing wrong with that, I agree they should have a say and a seat at the table, but I find it dishonest when they say it isn't about money.

Sure.

But the league is definitely losing the PR war big time. They look like villains

[Unnamed Trialist]

On 7/23/2021 at 3:47 AM, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

 

Is Andi on OneSoccer an independent journalist? Or the official spokesperson of the CPL? 

Does her job description include having any, even the most minimal, critical viewpoint regarding the way the league is run? 

 

[narduch]

2 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

Is Andi on OneSoccer an independent journalist? Or the official spokesperson of the CPL? 

Does her job description include having any, even the most minimal, critical viewpoint regarding the way the league is run? 

 

I always assumed she does freelance work for One Soccer considering she works for TSN and CBC too.

None of the One Soccer crew should be taken seriously on this issue. You know they don't want to bite the hand that feeds.

With respect to Petrillo, I always thought it was a little questionable that she married a TFC keeper, who she met while covering the team.

[Unnamed Trialist]

1 hour ago, johnyb said:

Contrary to what has been posted/said, for this anonymous CPL Player, it's absolutely about money. Nothing wrong with that, I agree they should have a say and a seat at the table, but I find it dishonest when they say it isn't about money.

How can we possibly know this if you don't know who the player is? Okay, money has to be a major factor since we are a long way away from putting these athletes into an elite income category that might compensate other things.

All I am saying: if a guy is playing in CPL and is on the lower or even mid end of the salary scale, he very much may be thinking he could be making more doing something else. But he's not, he's playing soccer and making less. 

So for him it is fair to say "not about the money".

In any case, the question ensuring a contract lasts a year long and the player gets full medical is not a money issue, it is a social security issue. Or scheduling that imposes gruelling travel, game congestion and injury risk--not about the money. Terms of how a player could be loaned, terms of how a contract can be broken if a player gets a better offer. 

 

[Unnamed Trialist]

7 minutes ago, narduch said:

I always assumed she does freelance work for One Soccer considering she works for TSN and CBC too.

None of the One Soccer crew should be taken seriously on this issue. You know they don't want to bite the hand that feeds.

With respect to Petrillo, I always thought it was a little questionable that she married a TFC keeper, who she met while covering the team.

She plays cheerleader too much for my liking, in the end she's a cariacture of herself too often, and then look what happens on OneSoccer: they use her as a "pretty face", she asks questions and hardly ever is even allowed to opine.

And she accepts it. So it's being complicit with the degree of sexism you are being submitted to. 

I see she is doing exactly this with the Olympic coverage, although the Olympics are a cheerleading journalist's dream.

[red card]

1 hour ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

She plays cheerleader too much for my liking, in the end she's a cariacture of herself too often, and then look what happens on OneSoccer: they use her as a "pretty face", she asks questions and hardly ever is even allowed to opine.

And she accepts it. So it's being complicit with the degree of sexism you are being submitted to. 

I see she is doing exactly this with the Olympic coverage, although the Olympics are a cheerleading journalist's dream.

That's usually how the role works in Canada. The host/asking question role is about being a facilitator - so being neutral is default setting with being a devil's advocate if the discussion is too one-sided. Compared to British networks, this style does look like cheerleading. 

The host is also largely at the mercy of the show's producer. Andi Petrillo acts with much more leeway on OneSoccer than she does on CBC. OneSoccer Today has much more free-wheeling coverage of CPL & CanadaSoccer than MLS on TSN coverage - which ranges from being plain vanilla to boosterism.

Now where networks have paid big bucks for league rights, being not a cheerleader is a career risk. So, it has become the default setting in the US especially for the NFL. It's more telling what they don't say or cover. And in a social media dominated world, it's more lucrative now to break news by getting chummy with the league rather than providing incisive commentary. 

 

[Cheeta]

^ Not a fan of this type of coverage.  Never have been though it's been the default for decades now.  As far as I'm concerned media coverage should be a full out contact sport in its own right, and it can be, to a degree, in the world we live in but that's nowhere near the norm.  Amateur internet pundits (mostly) just don't get the weight.

Long gone are the days when you feared the wrath of the press.  Maybe that's not altogether bad but maybe it is.

[MrsC]

8 hours ago, johnyb said:

Contrary to what has been posted/said, for this anonymous CPL Player, it's absolutely about money. Nothing wrong with that, I agree they should have a say and a seat at the table, but I find it dishonest when they say it isn't about money.

This isn't true.  It will be about $ some day but right now there are many issues regarding player safety, lack of coverage/resources for players injured on the job, as well as contract issues.  I've personally spoken to several players across the league. They not only want a seat/voice at the table, they critically need it.

[Aird25]

8 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

She plays cheerleader too much for my liking, in the end she's a cariacture of herself too often, and then look what happens on OneSoccer: they use her as a "pretty face", she asks questions and hardly ever is even allowed to opine.

And she accepts it. So it's being complicit with the degree of sexism you are being submitted to. 

I see she is doing exactly this with the Olympic coverage, although the Olympics are a cheerleading journalist's dream.

She’s basically playing Gary Lineker’s role, or countless other male and female broadcasters, and I think she does it well. 

[Aird25]

1 hour ago, MrsC said:

This isn't true.  It will be about $ some day but right now there are many issues regarding player safety, lack of coverage/resources for players injured on the job, as well as contract issues.  I've personally spoken to several players across the league. They not only want a seat/voice at the table, they critically need it.

Those things, as well as the others mentioned in the article, seem like they only improve with further investment, no?

[Watchmen]

4 hours ago, Cheeta said:

Long gone are the days when you feared the wrath of the press.  Maybe that's not altogether bad but maybe it is.

This is obviously a lengthier discussion, but we all know that people self select a lot of their media now, finding the opinions that already match. I mean, this board went ape shit when Rollins spoke to some anonymous players about the wages, because it wasn't what some on the board wanted to hear and accused him of making things up "because he hates the league". And I don't like Rollins, but it's laughable to think he hates the league or wants it to fail.

[Unnamed Trialist]

1 hour ago, Aird25 said:

She’s basically playing Gary Lineker’s role, or countless other male and female broadcasters, and I think she does it well. 

She wasnt like that before, as I see it One Soccer demoted her, she's no longer an analyst. 

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

9 hours ago, MrsC said:

This isn't true.  It will be about $ some day but right now there are many issues regarding player safety, lack of coverage/resources for players injured on the job, as well as contract issues....

It's also not about $ right now because negative publicity about absurdly low salary numbers did finally shame the league into verbally commiting before the season started to a minimum number that was still very low but more or less liveable in the short term for a younger adult with no family to support.

That whole sorry episode clearly demonstrated that the owners and league office were being unreasonable as the nickle and diming involved was tiny compared to their overall annual costs and that certainly was enough to convince me that the players badly needed collective representation after initially being somewhat skeptical about it.

Edited July 25, 2021 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

 

Who knows what's motivating the owners to not do the right thing at this point by creating a work environment conducive to producing the best possible entertainment product? Maybe they fear the ramifications of a future in which they are no longer able to follow the teachings of Ayn Rand by having David Clanachan treat their hired help like the employees of a certain mediocre donut chain and view this stuff as the Alamo. If we give in to these Bolshevik soccer players a truly nightmarish future awaits:

 

[CDNFootballer]

Atletico Ottawa Set To Host ‘Pay What You Want’ Home Opener

https://northerntribune.ca/atletico-ottawa-inaugural-home-opener/

Canadian Premier League side Atletico Ottawa is set to play its first-ever home match on August 14, some 544 days after the club was announced. To celebrate the side taking to the pitch at TD Place for the first time, club ownership is doing something unusual: a pay-what-you-want home opener.

The historic home match against the Halifax Wanderers will see Atletico Ottawa permitted to host up to 15,000 fans at TD Place, with proceeds from its ‘pay what you want’ ticket sales going to the Youth Services Bureau of Ottawa, who run a range of programs for at-risk youth and their families.

[Stanley]

34 minutes ago, CDNFootballer said:

Atletico Ottawa Set To Host ‘Pay What You Want’ Home Opener

https://northerntribune.ca/atletico-ottawa-inaugural-home-opener/

Canadian Premier League side Atletico Ottawa is set to play its first-ever home match on August 14, some 544 days after the club was announced. To celebrate the side taking to the pitch at TD Place for the first time, club ownership is doing something unusual: a pay-what-you-want home opener.

The historic home match against the Halifax Wanderers will see Atletico Ottawa permitted to host up to 15,000 fans at TD Place, with proceeds from its ‘pay what you want’ ticket sales going to the Youth Services Bureau of Ottawa, who run a range of programs for at-risk youth and their families.

I hope that doesn't ending up backfiring on them.  As in "I paid very little for the first game and will only want to pay that little for future games".

[Cheeta]

^ Ah it's a bit of fun, good on them.

That being said they should make sure they collect BEFORE the 1st whistle and not AFTER the last.  Just saying.

 

 

 

[Cheeta]

With the conclusion of "The Kickoff" I have to express my disappointment in the lack of "Happy to be leaving Winnipeg" digs on here.   

People, people.  Where's the Vs I've come to know?  You're letting me down here.

 

[Bison44]

Ummm, I'm in MB, but I am still happy to see WPG in my rear view mirror.  If that makes you feel better.  

[narduch]

24 minutes ago, Cheeta said:

With the conclusion of "The Kickoff" I have to express my disappointment in the lack of "Happy to be leaving Winnipeg" digs on here.   

People, people.  Where's the Vs I've come to know?  You're letting me down here.

 

The players seem pretty happy to not be in Winnipeg 

 

Edited July 27, 2021 by narduch

[Markoaleks]

2 hours ago, Stanley said:

I hope that doesn't ending up backfiring on them.  As in "I paid very little for the first game and will only want to pay that little for future games".

CPL and Ottawa entering Radiohead In Rainbows era pay what you feel it’s worth space ——-    Love it 

[jonovision]

1 hour ago, Cheeta said:

With the conclusion of "The Kickoff" I have to express my disappointment in the lack of "Happy to be leaving Winnipeg" digs on here.   

People, people.  Where's the Vs I've come to know?  You're letting me down here.

 

Winnipeg is fine, but it sounds like the conditions for the players were not. I'd want to leave this city if all I ever saw was the inside of a downtown hotel and a school bus.

Also afternoon games in July (or June, or August) are ridiculous.