Turbulent times for the CSA

The Canadian Soccer Association (CSA) or as I know them the complete waste of time organization that is after its own self interests of those that run it and not that of Canadian soccer. This organization has spent more times doing nothing and letting players such as the likes of Owen Hargraves to jump to other national soccer association because there is no quality national soccer team here, no quality coach here, no one with any real soccer knowledge to run a national team that has become a barren wasteland and this is directly related to the reason why we have only qualified once for the world cup.

Some might say that finally a revolution has happened, and it’s start slowly, but is slowly gaining ground. It all started after the CSA finally made a good move when they hired Fred Nykamp as the incoming CEO in May of this year, well alas the CSA can only be smart for only so long and then subsequently fired him/never really hired him. This caused an uproar as again the CSA was left with no one to run the organization and the reasoning for Fred’s firing was because they didn’t want him to commute from Toronto where he resides to Ottawa to work each week, something that apparently they had agreed upon in negotiations. I would like to now thank Fred for suing the CSA and keeping their lawyers mindlessly busy for the next year as he looks for the 0.5 million he thinks he is owed.

Alas Canadian soccer fans were mad, and at the Canada-Costa Rica Friendly match in September a few hundred of them showed it by wearing matching black t-shirts and singing “Sack the CSA” behind the south goal of BMO field. Yes the revolution is slowly but surely beginning, but this is only the fans, or wait is there more…

Well apparently there is more and it begins with three high ranking representatives from the Toronto FC, Montreal Impact and Vancouver Whitecaps respectively. These representatives met one night at a Toronto FC game in a private box, and after a meeting or too, some fine Canadian ice wine released a press release. “They announced a commitment to work together to foster and supervise elite player development across the country”. While this may not seem like big news to some, it’s earth shattering here in Canadian soccer, basically what they said is screw you CSA you won’t help us out develop player talent, we are going to do it ourselves with or without you, hopefully without since most times you end up screwing it up.

So yes the revolution has begun in Canada, thankfully, about time, yet the hope is that someone will abolish the CSA and move quickly so that we can actually qualify for 2010 World Cup. Hopefully we get this all organized soon enough, and all the power to the Canadian clubs for finally doing what the CSA should have done over 20 years ago, so that we could produce young talent and compete on the international scene.

Source: www.sportsnet.ca