The Importance of the Players vs CSA Pay Dispute

[Califax]

3 minutes ago, mpg_29 said:

"We have recently learned that in 2018, Canada Soccer signed an agreement with Canadian Soccer Business that has completely compromised their ability to leverage the on-field success of our senior national teams. To have any chance of creating substantial, lasting change for all Canada Soccer programs, we need the terms of this agreement to be disclosed and corrected. We want to who signed this deal that has hand cuffed our association. Why have Canada Soccer given up autonomy of the greatest opportunity to grow our program in years?"

Not trying to be negative on the players but....anybody who followed the formation and creation of the CPL knew this. 

why did they think their games were aired on OneSoccer?..

This is super important. It comes across as just naïve.

“recently?” Like piss off. A lot of us have rung our hands about this long before players decided to pay attention. 

Edited June 5, 2022 by Califax

[SpecialK]

2 minutes ago, mpg_29 said:

"We have recently learned that in 2018, Canada Soccer signed an agreement with Canadian Soccer Business that has completely compromised their ability to leverage the on-field success of our senior national teams. To have any chance of creating substantial, lasting change for all Canada Soccer programs, we need the terms of this agreement to be disclosed and corrected. We want to who signed this deal that has hand cuffed our association. Why have Canada Soccer given up autonomy of the greatest opportunity to grow our program in years?"

Not trying to be negative on the players but....anybody who followed the formation and creation of the CPL knew this. 

why did they think their games were aired on OneSoccer?..

But the details of that agreement. Like we didn’t know that CSB owns the rights to the womens likeness for the EA video games 

[SpecialK]

I wonder what the arrangement is for jerseys? 

[canucksfan]

 

They did a year long search with a recruitment company just to hire the guy who worked for them already.

[ag futbol]

1 minute ago, Califax said:

This is super important. It comes across as just naïve.

“recently?” Like piss off. A lot of us have rung our hands about this long before players decided to pay attention. 

Perhaps not entirely fair. We knew it existed, we don’t know all the terms. 

Maybe what the CSA has shared through negotiations is more than what’s public and that’s what this statement is about.

[SpecialK]

1 minute ago, canucksfan said:

 

They did a year long search with a recruitment company just to hire the guy who worked for them already.

Speechless !!! So Incompetent

[ag futbol]

1 minute ago, canucksfan said:

 

They did a year long search with a recruitment company just to hire the guy who worked for them already.

Earl Cochrane? Lol. 
 

That dude was awful at TFC. Keep him away from our association please

[Floortom]

LMAO@ Earl Cochrane being the culmination of a one year search

[phil03]

Like, if the argument the players are making here is ''morgaging the national teams to bail the CPL was a dumb move and we want more say to avoid other similar dumb moves. Oh, and anything we can do to get out of the thing should be done!'' then I honestly don't see what there would be to say against that except for the timing.

I like the CPL, I follow the CPL, but the idea that the game can't grow in the country without it and that our men's team can't go anywhere without it has been proven wrong by the last year. Moreover, it isn't like there wasn't any alternatives either: a push to get Canadian players to be deemed domestic by the MLS comes to mind.

Hell, if anything I'd argue its the other way around: the only way for the CPL to be fully stable financially and the players getting paid solid wages is for the game to grow enough in the country that they have the public they need and the way to do is with successed for our national teams.

Edited June 5, 2022 by phil03

[Meepmeep]

2 minutes ago, Floortom said:

LMAO@ Earl Cochrane being the culmination of a one year search

Money down the drain.  
Can only imagine what else they’ve been blowing money on.   Earl Cochrane holy sh!t. 

[JAVIERF]

You play and go public about the crooks entrepreneurs that milked out football.  Of course but you play.   Don't play the Robespierre's maneuver yet 

[Gian-Luca]

13 minutes ago, canucksfan said:

Interesting, I thought completely differently. I'm a lawyer and my first thought was how unpolished the statement was, like a first draft. I immediately thought it was clearly penned by the players and maybe given a quick 5 minute look over by someone more experienced.

I think you and Free Kick are both correct in that I don't think it was written by the players, but likely a very poor lawyer. Maybe Westhead wrote it. He seems to think the players are asking for "equal compensation" with the women's team for match fees but the letter as drafted doesn't say equal. It says "equitable", which doesn't necessarily mean the same thing.

I've read it about four times now and, other than the demand for better WC tickets for friends & family, there is little that I truly understand about the players position. They are asking for 40% of the WC bonus, yes, but there's no word on what the CSA offered - "archaic" is not a % - or why it was insufficient (is it incomparable to what other teams get? Or is it comparable but the players feel they need more money for some unspecified reason? Who knows based upon this). I don't understand why they are demanding a women's league be set up (which requires owners & investors) in conjunction with not playing Panama in a friendly, and I don't know what "equitable" or "sharing" actually means in the context of the women's games. More former players into leadership positions at the CSA - how many more? How many are interested? How many are there now? How many have been denied this, if any?

The bit about transparency and the chance to review the CSB agreement that's been publicly known for 4 years I understand, but is not boycott-worthy IMO, and definitely not at the last minute.

Its way too vague and nebulous as a means of justifying screwing thousands of fans at pretty much beyond the last minute. In generally I support the players first and foremost but can't really shake the feeling they are being ill-advised here.

 

[Unnamed Trialist]

32 minutes ago, canucksfan said:

Interesting, I thought completely differently. I'm a lawyer and my first thought was how unpolished the statement was, like a first draft. I immediately thought it was clearly penned by the players and maybe given a quick 5 minute look over by someone more experienced.

It has grammar errors, spelling too, looks rushed and deflects. I agree with you there. 

But: we're not going to play until you investigate and expose how the soccer business is outsourced--that's not a players' way of seeing things. 

[Soro17]

46 minutes ago, Free kick said:

https://www.tsn.ca/video/canadian-men-s-soccer-team-won-t-play-against-panama-over-contract-dispute~2457339
 

If you read that statement put together on behalf of the players, you can easily tell thats its not written by the players themselves.   Its way too polished, very well written from a PR perspective,  and demonstrates far too much understanding of the side deals with financial implications.   With all due repect to the players skills, they are not lawyers or CPA’s.  Nor Public relations experts. 
 

This is the kind of statement a players union in major professional sport would submit in times of lockouts and strikes.  The same unions who have an army of lawyers and PR ppl on retainer. 

what this tells me is that there is an unknown intermediary here who is at the very root of this dispute and perhaps initiating this dispute.  Be curious to know who that is.  

Likely a player agent who, while technically a lawyer, really isn’t one. The kind of law firms that professional sports teams / leagues use would never put out a letter like that. Neither would an actual PR firm. The drafting is amateurish and it displays naivety on key issues that is quite shocking. The leaks to Rick Westhead suggest a player agent as well. 
 

Like Canucksfan, I am a lawyer. I would receive something better from one of our articling students. 

Edited June 5, 2022 by Soro17

[Diego]

8 minutes ago, ag futbol said:

Earl Cochrane? Lol. 
 

That dude was awful at TFC. Keep him away from our association please

Being that he was the deputy of the same position he is being hired for (after a 1 year global search they paid consultants for) it appears its already too late to keep him away 

[phil03]

Does anyone has a link to the actual deal? What has been published publicly I mean.

Edited June 5, 2022 by phil03

[canuckgbp]

Cochrane??? The hits just keep on coming lol. 

[RJB]

9 minutes ago, JAVIERF said:

You play and go public about the crooks entrepreneurs that milked out football.  Of course but you play.   Don't play the Robespierre's maneuver yet 

So when should they not play?  At what point?

[mpg_29]

2 minutes ago, phil03 said:

Like, if the argument the players are making here is ''morgaging the national teams to bail the CPL was a dumb move and we want more say to avoid other similar dumb moves. Oh, and anything we can do to get out of the thing should be done!'' then I honestly don't see what there would be to say again.

I like the CPL, I follow the CPL, but the idea that the game can't grow in the country without it and that our men's team can't go anywhere without it has been proven wrong by the last year. Moreover, it isn't like there wasn't any alternatives either: a push to get Canadian players to be deemed domestic by the MLS comes to mind.

Hell, if anything I'd argue its the other way around: the only way for the CPL to be fully stable financially and the players getting paid solid wages is for the game to grow enough in the country that they have the public they need and the way to do is with successed for our national teams.

No offense but this is just naïve to anything related to CANMNT outside of the last year.

The CANMNT struggled for decades and the no.1 argument was ALWAYS (we need a professional domestic league)

[Diego]

15 minutes ago, Gian-Luca said:

I don't understand why they are demanding a women's league be set up (which requires owners & investors) in conjunction with not playing Panama in a friendly,

Honestly, this was the part of the letter that I hated the most. 

This is some high level demand that can't be fixed yesterday, tomorrow or next month. 

I can't help but see it as some cynical ploy to win the PR battle and that makes it... gross. They *will* play a game before there is a domestic women's league. They will play a World Cup before there is a domestic women's league. Acting like this is one of their current demands is just absurdity. 

[cornerkick]

what does a "general secretary" do in a sporting org?  is the president/ceo position not the same job or have some overlap?

[JohnnyFranchise]

Just now, Diego said:

Honestly, this was the part of the letter that I hated the most. 

This is some high level demand that can't be fixed yesterday, tomorrow or next month. 

I can't help but see it as some cynical ploy to win the PR battle and that makes it... gross. They *will* play a game before there is a domestic women's league. They will play a World Cup before there is a domestic women's league. Acting like this is one of their current demands is just absurdity. 

That's exactly what I thought when I was reading that part of the letter. They're trying to save face after costing thousands of fans hundreds of dollars.

[phil03]

59 minutes ago, mpg_29 said:

No offense but this is just naïve to anything related to CANMNT outside of the last year.

The CANMNT struggled for decades and the no.1 argument was ALWAYS (we need a professional domestic league)

None taken, but I would respectfully argue that the fact demonstrate that this line of thinking has been demonstrated to be false during the last year and that it does matter. Moreover, it isn't like the last year came completely out of the blue either from what I heard there was a wide train of thoughts of ''this is great generation, we are gonna have a break through, this is just a question of time!'' Then their is the idea that the game's grassroots growth was bound to bear fruit eventually, which has been there since I was a kid playing...

Moreover, even if it was indeed such a concensus it doesn't mean that signing the contract wasn't dumb. If it was that complicated and expensive to make it work then others alternatives (such as full domestic status in the MLS) should have been better explored and if the option of a domestic league was still retained then funding the CPL should have been done openly, and explicitely labelled as such, in a manner that didn't tie our hands nearly as much.

Their is just no excuse to do something that handcuff all the aspects of Canadian Soccer for what is ultimately one project. An important and praise worthy project, sure, but one project nonetheless.

The idea that the CPL is the be all end all is unfair to most fans and counterproductive and the current situation is a massively good example of that.

Edited June 6, 2022 by phil03

[Meepmeep]

3 minutes ago, Diego said:

Honestly, this was the part of the letter that I hated the most. 

This is some high level demand that can't be fixed yesterday, tomorrow or next month. 

I can't help but see it as some cynical ploy to win the PR battle and that makes it... gross. They *will* play a game before there is a domestic women's league. They will play a World Cup before there is a domestic women's league. Acting like this is one of their current demands is just absurdity. 

I read it as-if revenues from the Women’s AND Men’s teams are used by CSB to bank roll pro soccer in Canada then why are they only funding a Men’s league.  

[mpg_29]

2 minutes ago, Diego said:

Honestly, this was the part of the letter that I hated the most. 

This is some high level demand that can't be fixed yesterday, tomorrow or next month. 

I can't help but see it as some cynical ploy to win the PR battle and that makes it... gross. They *will* play a game before there is a domestic women's league. They will play a World Cup before there is a domestic women's league. Acting like this is one of their current demands is just absurdity. 

It just comes across as uninformed imo. They are complaining about the CSB deal...which is arguably keeping the CPL afloat. And on the other hand wanting a domestic women's league...which would also require money.