Kevin Blue named CSA General Secretary and CEO

[SpursFlu]

I had no idea of who this Whitehead guy is or knew any of his work. Everyone keeps referring to some sexual assault case in the NHL. Ok great good work there. It doesn't mean he can just run around, do and say whatever he pleases without being challenged on his work or the motivation of his work. In fact it seems like his apologist just keep referring to his other story to justify his actions. Well he uncovered a sexual assault over here so how dare anyone question him

Edited March 18 by SpursFlu

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

7 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

The Kate photo is small, but if someone were to break the story everyone hopes breaks- William is leaving kate for that noblewoman because George is dying and he doesn't want a commoner queen and his kids born out of wedlock might mess with the line of succession and all that- and the same reporter also breaks some financial story about the royal family mismanaging funds or whatnot- I think very few people are going to look at the latter story as any type of incitement, because the big story that tabloid would've broken would be the biggest news event of the year in the UK, just like the Hockey Canada scandal was probably the biggest story of the year in Canada.

The implied Canada Soccer scandal is that CSA board members signed a bad deal with CSB and it screwed up the program's financials. Not really a juicy story and no one has any reason to believe there's anything deeper than a poor business deal signed by people who may not have been qualified to negotiate that type of deal

 

All of this is hypothetical, but my point is that whatever he breaks on Canada soccer is so small compared to his hockey work, and if he did want to stir the pot and drive clicks, he could probably just report on what I assume are the dozens of stories about hockey players doing... less than honourable things that I am certain are sitting in his inbox right now.

So it's a slow day for hockey scandals. 

The more you pick at the scabs of Soccer Canada, the more chance you have of something really bad happening.  Any you can be first on the scene.

[InglewoodJack]

10 minutes ago, Bigandy said:

I think you missed my point. Im not saying that the financials are dire but I want to hear about the positives. 

The information westhead is presenting is that there are costs to winning games. Thats half the story. Theres also prizes for winning games which he briefly touches on. 

Based on the above he comes to the conclusion that: The more we win, the closer to insolvency the federation becomes. 

That conclusion is wildly negative and false. Whats the most we can win? the whole tournament. If we win the whole tournament, we are much much better off. 

Why does he come to the conclusion about winning and insolvency when that simply is not true. Maybe theres a possible scenario where we win and are set back, but the overall conclusion could be more accurate if he wrote, "the further we progress, the more money CSA will profit from, even though costs also rise." 

 

It comes back to the implication that the most likely scenario and one which the CSA should prepare for is that we beat T&T, at best win one group stage copa game and then get bounced. We can hypothetically win the whole thing, make a boatload of cash, then also turn around and go and win ourselves a world cup and get the biggest injection of cash possible in the entire sport, but again, if you are looking at this from the angle of finances and not "how good is Canada at soccer", then that's the scenario you have to plan for, and without saying it, it's very clear that Westhead is suggesting that as a likely scenario.

I will say that I am not aware of FIFA's contributions or how much of a dent that would make in our expenses, or if CONCACAF/COMNEBOL will also subsidize the cost, so perhaps that's a glaring blind spot, but I don't think making the crux of your argument something along the lines of "there's a plausible scenario where Canada wins some games but does not advance, in fact, that is likely" is outlandish whatsoever.

1 minute ago, Bigandy said:

The CSB deal has been used as a catalyst to bring up former sexual scandals of canada soccer/whitecaps etc.(see heritage committe meetings) and unequal gender pay. Pretty juicy topics. Both worth while discussions but not directly related to the CSB deal. 

There hasn't been the same publicized link between sexual assault and toxic culture in Canadian Soccer as it's positioned wrt hockey canada. I'm not aware of exactly how those scandals are being tied to the CSB deal, but the main crux of sexual assault in hockey in Canada is that Canadian hockey culture needs to be torn down and rebuilt. As far as I'm aware, sexual scandals in Canadian Soccer are more treated as isolated incidents by specific bad people. All this said, at the end of the day, if Westhead wants clicks, there are more than enough juicy hockey stories he can break that will generate an exponentially larger amount of traffic or ad rev or TV opps or whatever Westhead's alleged motivation could be.

[Bigandy]

10 minutes ago, RS said:

Respectfully, I think you're projecting your own interpretation onto the general public.

The main thrust is that Canada Soccer is in dire financial straits and these games could make it worse. What's factually incorrect about that?

I think the main thrust is that winning these games could make it worse as evidenced by the title. 

The title: 
"National team success could compound Canada Soccer's finanacial woes" 

What you wrote is a different sentiment in my opinion and one that I agree with. I would have absolutely no issue with this article if it was framed more to what you are saying. 

The reader has to define if success is getting eliminated from the group stage. However, the article talks about how the more success we get, the worse it could get financially. And that statement is false unless you subscribe to the concept that anything is theoretically possible and therefore putting "could" in front of any statement makes it true.
 

If we win the copa, we could incur a brand new fifa tax that takes away all the prize money. Technically its true that it could happen. However, its very unlikely given the parameters of the situation and its manipulative to report an unlikely scenario. 
 

[narduch]

27 minutes ago, Ruud said:

Is there another way to have this discussion?
 

.1 running a successful federation in the 21st-century cannot rely alone on government subsidies.  I think there was a recent article saying as much, and how many sports federations were underfunded

2 happens to have been an interesting test case as costs increased and the ambition of the Federation increased to develop domestic leagues 

3 There can be no comparison made with hockey  And so far basketball does not yet have the same demands on its  players .  Big media ignores us all  

4 The model for success for  women and men has  proven elusive  

 

The irony of course is Westhead wrote the article on NSO's needing more money. Lol.

[InglewoodJack]

2 minutes ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

So it's a slow day for hockey scandals. 

The more you pick at the scabs of Soccer Canada, the more chance you have of something really bad happening.  Any you can be first on the scene.

Hate to say it given this venue and the reason we're all here right now, but a slow hockey day in canada is probably more newsworthy to most Canadians than all but the most exciting soccer days in Canada.

Case in point: Westhead's last 4 tweets are one about this story, and 3 tweets about different sexual assault stories in Canadian Hockey- one in the Q, one in Manitoba High School, and another in the GTHL (AAA?). The tweet with the lowest engagement is the one about Canada soccer, and a big number of the comments on that tweet are people saying the exact same thing people are saying here- Westhead has an angle or Westhead doesn't report on the good, or Westhead wants to spoil the upcoming camp. Not by any means a reliable metric, but his audience clearly cares a lot more about the hockey stuff, even if it's irrelevant high school hockey.

I don't doubt that sports journalists have angles they're working, I just don't think the juice is worth the squeeze for Westhead if he's really doing this for clicks.

[RS]

1 minute ago, Bigandy said:

I think the main thrust is that winning these games could make it worse as evidenced by the title. 

The title: 
"National team success could compound Canada Soccer's finanacial woes" 

Right. You've said exactly what I did, just with different words.

2 minutes ago, Bigandy said:

What you wrote is a different sentiment in my opinion and one that I agree with. I would have absolutely no issue with this article if it was framed more to what you are saying. 

The reader has to define if success is getting eliminated from the group stage. However, the article talks about how the more success we get, the worse it could get financially. And that statement is false unless you subscribe to the concept that anything is theoretically possible and therefore putting "could" in front of any statement makes it true.

The statement cannot be false because it's not definitive.

Regardless, it's not as ridiculous a hypothesis as you're making it out to be. There's already precedent for this worst-case scenario happening because that's exactly what's happened to Canada Soccer over the past three years. The women won gold, the men qualified for the World Cup for the first time in 36 years, and Canada Soccer is arguably worse off than it was before either of those things happened.

5 minutes ago, Bigandy said:

If we win the copa, we could incur a brand new fifa tax that takes away all the prize money. Technically its true that it could happen. However, its very unlikely given the parameters of the situation and its manipulative to report an unlikely scenario. 

What's more likely, that Canada gets ousted at the group stage at Copa America or that Canada wins Copa America and then has to give all that money to FIFA in a brand new tax?

Or more succinctly, which of those two scenarios should responsible CSA big wigs be planning for?

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

14 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

Hate to say it given this venue and the reason we're all here right now, but a slow hockey day in canada is probably more newsworthy to most Canadians than all but the most exciting soccer days in Canada.

Case in point: Westhead's last 4 tweets are one about this story, and 3 tweets about different sexual assault stories in Canadian Hockey- one in the Q, one in Manitoba High School, and another in the GTHL (AAA?). The tweet with the lowest engagement is the one about Canada soccer, and a big number of the comments on that tweet are people saying the exact same thing people are saying here- Westhead has an angle or Westhead doesn't report on the good, or Westhead wants to spoil the upcoming camp. Not by any means a reliable metric, but his audience clearly cares a lot more about the hockey stuff, even if it's irrelevant high school hockey.

I don't doubt that sports journalists have angles they're working, I just don't think the juice is worth the squeeze for Westhead if he's really doing this for clicks.

Clicks is not the only reason a journalist chases scandal.

[InglewoodJack]

4 minutes ago, WestHamCanadianinOxford said:

Clicks is not the only reason a journalist chases scandal.

I know that, but ad revenue, notoriety, awards, fame, any metric which a journalist might chase can be far more easily achieved by writing an article about some junior hockey team in nowhere, Saskatchewan than about Canada Soccer's financial woes.

[CanadaFan123]

39 minutes ago, RS said:

Respectfully, I think you're projecting your own interpretation onto the general public.

The main thrust is that Canada Soccer is in dire financial straits and these games could make it worse. What's factually incorrect about that?

The main thrust is that Canada qualifying for the Copa America could be financially detrimental, which would take an implausible set of facts to happen. The main example given in the article is a scenario where we win games, which is just laughable considering the cash windfall that would bring.

You would know better than most but the claim that match preparation/travel is going to be a huge expense is even funnier. It’s a major tournament - what are we paying for exactly? Hotels and flights will be covered, likely transport to and from venues as well. 

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

9 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

I know that, but ad revenue, notoriety, awards, fame, any metric which a journalist might chase can be far more easily achieved by writing an article about some junior hockey team in nowhere, Saskatchewan than about Canada Soccer's financial woes.

Not sure you are  getting it.

Chasing and especially helping make a novel scandal attracts some people in ways beyond monetary gain.

[Kadenge]

Back to Blue. I thought he handled the presser very well. Despite his boyish looks, he's a tough cookie. I liked his response to the CSA/CSB deal...it's not the be all and end all but rather part of what needs to be addressed, without minimizing it's importance and impact. If he can't bring all stakeholders to the table and reach consensus, I don't see how anyone else can. And this has to be seriously taken into account by all parties involved. It may be the last shot at getting things resolved and back on track.

[Unnamed Trialist]

It's funny how long it has taken so many here to see the whole Westhead thing clearly. He was always a muckraker with no knowledge of the sport, he is assigned the task of digging around for an angle instead of reporting. I am sure he is fed half the garbage he writes.  If you go on his Twitter and say anything, remotely anything critical, he'll block you. It is the sort of slanted agenda that deserves to be criticized. 

[Bigandy]

4 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

It comes back to the implication that the most likely scenario and one which the CSA should prepare for is that we beat T&T, at best win one group stage copa game and then get bounced. 

If this is the main point, why doesnt it talk about it? Why does it say "success" and that "the uncomfortable truth is the better our players do, the worse financially it is for the federeation". 

The worst scenario is win one game at copa and get bounced. Its very likely. Why doesnt the article talk about this being the main issue instead of "the more we win the worse it gets".
 

1 hour ago, InglewoodJack said:

 As far as I'm aware, sexual scandals in Canadian Soccer are more treated as isolated incidents by specific bad people. All this said, at the end of the day, if Westhead wants clicks, there are more than enough juicy hockey stories he can break that will generate an exponentially larger amount of traffic or ad rev or TV opps or whatever Westhead's alleged motivation could be.

One of the heritage committee members said canada soccer is worse than hockey canada. Im not sure theres so many hockey stories that no one else is reporting that it would fill up westheads time. He can do both. 

[Bigandy]

52 minutes ago, RS said:

Right. You've said exactly what I did, just with different words.

The statement cannot be false because it's not definitive.

Regardless, it's not as ridiculous a hypothesis as you're making it out to be. There's already precedent for this worst-case scenario happening because that's exactly what's happened to Canada Soccer over the past three years. The women won gold, the men qualified for the World Cup for the first time in 36 years, and Canada Soccer is arguably worse off than it was before either of those things happened.

What's more likely, that Canada gets ousted at the group stage at Copa America or that Canada wins Copa America and then has to give all that money to FIFA in a brand new tax?

Or more succinctly, which of those two scenarios should responsible CSA big wigs be planning for?

I think you may misunderstand. I know theres a very realistic situation that we do not perform to the level we want and that ends up being detrimental to the federation financially. 

What Im arguing is that the article says the truth is the better we do, the worse off financially we are. 

Even being a bit pragmatic, we have a chance to get out of the group. Getting out of the group will 100% be better for CSA financially than if we get knocked out. The article says we would be worse off. 

I think we both agree that getting out of the group is better for CSA than getting kicked out. 

If so, the only thing we disagree on is if the article is implying that we are financially weaker if we win more. I think it says we are weaker as we win more. Perhaps you think its saying that its possible that some scenarios could result in worse financial outcomes. If so, I understand your side and would 100% agree with you if I shared the same interpretation. 

[RS]

20 minutes ago, CanadaFan123 said:

The main thrust is that Canada qualifying for the Copa America could be financially detrimental, which would take an implausible set of facts to happen. The main example given in the article is a scenario where we win games, which is just laughable considering the cash windfall that would bring.

Is it really implausible for Canada to win against T&T and then crash out at the group stage at the Copa? Obviously none of us here want that to happen, but we've all been around Canadian soccer long enough to admit there's a distinct possibility of that happening.

21 minutes ago, CanadaFan123 said:

You would know better than most but the claim that match preparation/travel is going to be a huge expense is even funnier. It’s a major tournament - what are we paying for exactly? Hotels and flights will be covered, likely transport to and from venues as well. 

Yes, all expenses pertaining to the tournament should be covered by Conmebol, but if there's a pre-tournament camp (and we'd all be screaming bloody murder if there wasn't) some or all of that would have to be covered by the CSA.

Teams will usually get their expenses covered from X date (let's say it's a week before their first match). Anything before that would be on the teams themselves to cover, so if we use June 13 as the date where Conmebol starts covering Canada's expense, the CSA will still need to find a way to pay for the training that will be happening between the Netherlands friendly and June 13. 

Another friendly where someone else foots the bill after the Netherlands game would do it. Or they roll the dice and eat the costs of a weeklong training camp somewhere hoping to recoup that by getting out of the group at the Copa.  

[Watchmen]

8 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

 I am sure he is fed half the garbage he writes.

That's most sports writers. I remember growing up in Vancouver with Gary Mason being the mouth piece for Canucks management while Tony Gallagher was the mouth piece for the players. In soccer, we currently have OneSoccer for the management vs Westhead for the players.

11 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

 If you go on his Twitter and say anything, remotely anything critical, he'll block you.

This isn't uncommon. I've heard/seen it from a number of journalists. Twitter is a cesspool, and they simply don't have time to weed out legitimate questions/concerns from trash. They block and move on. And frankly, there's a number of people who day they were "only asking a polite question" and when you look at it they were absolutely trying to troll.

[DeRo_Is_King]

2 hours ago, Joe MacCarthy said:

 

Well, at least he understands that we need money. And his focus will seemingly be on landing whales, which is a pretty common-sense approach.

He alluded to previous major donors but wasn't sure how those funds were secured in the past. If I were him, I'd definitely start by looking into that. Maybe he can use the organization's grassroots growth objective to appeal to major donors with matching community objectives in their ESG budgets. 

I also really wonder how conversations will go with Olivia. 

[red card]

In response to question about DeVos mentioning bankruptcy last year, I'm glad Blue directly said it will not happen. He also said unnamed source views presented in today's Westhead article is only an interpretation of the situation.

The notion winning will compound financial woes also fails to take into account winning is part of gaining back trust. It has been a top 5 driver of increasing fandom in Canada. Financially, it means getting paid more for friendlies, getting better teams for home friendlies, getting better crowds paying healthy ticket prices for home matches, more jersey sales and more brand activation opportunities for sponsors.

[RS]

26 minutes ago, Bigandy said:

I think you may misunderstand. I know theres a very realistic situation that we do not perform to the level we want and that ends up being detrimental to the federation financially. 

What Im arguing is that the article says the truth is the better we do, the worse off financially we are. 

Even being a bit pragmatic, we have a chance to get out of the group. Getting out of the group will 100% be better for CSA financially than if we get knocked out. The article says we would be worse off. 

I think we both agree that getting out of the group is better for CSA than getting kicked out. 

If so, the only thing we disagree on is if the article is implying that we are financially weaker if we win more. I think it says we are weaker as we win more. Perhaps you think its saying that its possible that some scenarios could result in worse financial outcomes. If so, I understand your side and would 100% agree with you if I shared the same interpretation. 

There's a very realistic and specific scenario in which winning would be detrimental to the CSA. As mentioned, winning hasn't helped the financial situation over the past three years, so there's definitely precedent.

That's where today's article is coming from, IMO (and I've already stated my disagreements with certain aspects of it).

That being said, consistent winning combined with prudent financial strategy and proper marketing will be what pulls Canada Soccer out of its doldrums. If Canada (men's and women's) can fulfill their potential and be a consistent force within CONCACAF for the next 5-10 years, the CSA will have no one to blame but themselves if they aren't able to take advantage of that from a financial perspective.

EDIT: This is also a partial response to @red card's post immediately above mine.

Edited March 18 by RS

[Bigandy]

12 minutes ago, RS said:

There's a very realistic and specific scenario in which winning would be detrimental to the CSA. As mentioned, winning hasn't helped the financial situation over the past three years, so there's definitely precedent.

That's where today's article is coming from, IMO (and I've already stated my disagreements with certain aspects of it).

That being said, consistent winning combined with prudent financial strategy and proper marketing will be what pulls Canada Soccer out of its doldrums. If Canada (men's and women's) can fulfill their potential and be a consistent force within CONCACAF for the next 5-10 years, the CSA will have no one to blame but themselves if they aren't able to take advantage of that from a financial perspective.

 

What situation is that? The game references " 2 wins at the copa" and "a few wins".  

What very realistic situation is it that we get 2 wins and/or a few wins and dont advance. Possible but not "very realistic". So what is the amount of wins we get at copa where we are worse off? 

As for your argument about the past 3 years. I assume you mean WCQ since we havnt been winning recently.
-The world cup qualification/winning is for sure helpful to our financial situation. However, a global pandemic and a fight for the WC bonus money is what hindered us. If we didnt have to rent out stadiums and have no fans during WCQ, then we would 100% be better off qualifying for the WC as opposed to not qualifying. 

EDIT: I just checked every world cup from 1974- 2022 and not a single country has gotten 6 points and failed to qualify for the next round. 

Edited March 18 by Bigandy

[CanadaFan123]

@RSWe are in a group with Argentina, Chile and Peru. There is no “realistic” situation where we beat one of those three teams and can’t make up a $200k bonus deficit. It’s extremely foolish to even entertain. It would be the biggest Canadian win on the biggest stage in history and create hundreds of thousands in sponsorship dollars. Never mind shirt sales, interest etc. 

If you follow the “thrust” of Westhead’s articles they put together few facts. Early on you would have believed that our national teams were underpaid and hard done by - now apparently the men’s bonuses will bankrupt us. 
 

 

Edited March 18 by CanadaFan123

[CanadaFan123]

49 minutes ago, RS said:

Is it really implausible for Canada to win against T&T and then crash out at the group stage at the Copa? Obviously none of us here want that to happen, but we've all been around Canadian soccer long enough to admit there's a distinct possibility of that happening.

 

That’s not what was said though? Of course that’s not implausible but then it also wouldn’t trigger the bonuses that would allegedly bankrupt us. I’d love to see what sort of fanciful accounting you’re coming up with to show a loss in this “plausible scenario”. It can’t involve missed flights or execs playing blackjack … go!

 

But seriously - I’d imagine that sponsorships from us being in the copa alone will cover any expenses in relation to the tournament on our end even if we crashed out. 

Edited March 18 by CanadaFan123

[gator]

6 hours ago, Aird25 said:

What a joke of an article. The hatchet job continues 

I have not really commented on this guy and his articles before, I knew little about him but I have to agree with many on here who refer to him as an 'ambulance chaser'! Just the timing of the article, coinciding with the CSA presser and jersey unveil is very suspicious, he seems like he wants to be the story, bogus!

[RS]

I don’t really have time to answer the responses directed at me above right now, but for now I will throw out a general query to a seemingly prevailing sentiment in here.

It seems that a lot of people are bothered by the “timing” of this latest Westhead article, which comes five days before the Copa America qualifier.

Would there have been a more suitable time or date to publish it? Since it’s referencing the qualifier it’s timely in that regard, but if it came out, say, tomorrow or Wednesday would people still be bothered that he’s torpedoing the good vibes?

I’m genuinely asking here, not trying to be snarky. Because for years on this board many have bemoaned the CSA not being held accountable by the media, and now that the more prominent investigative sports journalist in Canada comes along there’s some very negative reaction to it.

(After typing all of that I realized that I probably could have responded to the posts directed at me 😁)