Keeping Our Eyes On The Ball: What's Next For Canadian Soccer?
Kickabout recently had the pleasure of speaking with Peter Montopoli, General Secretary of the Canadian Soccer Association, alongside Director of Business Development Sandra Gage, to candidly discuss some of the concerns surrounding soccer in Canada. The conversation provided us with some eye-opening responses.
Why is 1986 the one and only time that Canada has qualified for the World Cup?
A big part of the success of the Canadian team back then was the creation and evolution of the NASL (North American Soccer League), which afforded the majority of our players the opportunity to play professionally, domestically. Today, without our own domestic league, our players are spread throughout the world. This means that we don't have an extensive player pool readily available at all times. But, now with the MLS things are changing. We need this level of professional development which has been missing for a number of years.
Funding comes with success and success is often a result of funding. What needs to happen first to benefit the CSA?
It's difficult to have revenue without results. You start with results because they lead to ratings, which are what is needed to build relationships. For example, a growth in membership, a growth in partnerships and a growth in international community. Establishing these relationships is how you generate revenue, revenue that we can then pump back into getting even better results. Now you have a circle - the ‘R' Factor circle.
Is the CSA receiving enough financial support from the Government?
I wouldn't complain with the funding we're receiving, and it isn't just government, but we need to be a $25 million organization to compete internationally and right now we're operating with a $15-$16 million budget. I think one of the benefits of soccer in our country versus the rest of the world is that we have domestic programs for our men's, women's as well as our girls and boys sides. This means that in this year alone we'll have 10 national teams operating plus a Para team for a total of 11. I doubt that there are other sports federations in Canada that have 11 national teams operating.
Considering the CSA's limited budged, is Canada not diluting its chances of success by running too many programs?
We have been told by the international soccer community that the one thing that they see with our teams is a lack of international soccer experience. Starting with the U15s the idea is to try and have 50 international matches for our best players, by the time they graduate out of the U20 program. We currently have players graduating from the U20 with only 5 or 6 international matches and that's not good enough, not if you want to compete internationally, so we need more matches.
Considering our ranking, Is it difficult for us to find international opponents (as of this printing Canada's FIFA ranking is 63rd in the world)?
Countries are very receptive to come and play; we just have to find the right country at the right time. This year is the first time in 10 years that we're going to have multiple home matches for our Men's and Women's senior teams. Historically, if you don't really have a soccer venue, I think you're prevented from playing traditional matches. So now with BMO Field and Saputo Stadium, we have a chance at hosting good quality matches on a natural turf with some pretty good attendance.
Comparing ourselves to a country like Honduras who has qualified for the 2010 World Cup - why have we failed to achieve similar success?
They are able to do things cheaper because they are a smaller nation. They have a national league and they have greater investment from major corporations. Also, they may have invested significant amounts into their men's side, but what about their women's program? We not only fund a men's team but also a women's that is ranked 10th best in the world; plus, we also have youth programs.
Now that soccer has overtaken hockey in terms of participation - why hasn't soccer found similar success?
A fair question; a lot of people feel this way. However, I think you really have to take a look at the global stage. Of the 200 plus countries competing for the World Cup, soccer is probably the number one sport in 198 of them. Compare this to hockey where maybe there are 24 countries that play a heavy hand. The landscape between the two is totally different and that's why soccer is the global game.
What I do like is the spirit of the question and that everybody asks that we should be doing better - we want to do well and we have that passion. It's a competitive landscape and it is going to take some time. I've always felt that winning the Men's World Cup is the toughest team trophy to win in the world, bar none.
What does the CSA have to do to ensure that Canada is a participant in 2014?
We need to do what we're doing - we've got a new Head Coach [Stephen Hart], who has tremendous knowledge of CONCACAF and is going around the world scouting players. We have a new program, and we're trying to play as many matches as possible in order to build the necessary international and CONCACAF experience and that's the key on the men's side.
Can we expect Canada to host a World Cup in the next 20 years?
You need 10 modern stadiums with a 50,000 seat capacity, plus the necessary infrastructure to host the World Cup. Until we get close to that time and government is willing to invest billions of dollars to build that infrastructure we're not there. The Women's World Cup is more realistic. We are bidding for the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup tournament and I think it can provide us with the necessary infrastructure to get to the next stage. In running the FIFA U20 World Cup we got a new stadium built through BMO Field and hopefully Ottawa will have a stadium in place by that time too. It's one step at a time.
What has the CSA done to benefit from the success of the FIFA U20 Tournament?
Sandra Gage - The FIFA U20 brought the following of soccer in this country to a different level. People recognized, "Wow this game is played at this level and we want to be part of it," so it actually puts more pressure on us to bring ourselves up to that level.
Peter - In addition to building BMO Field and the MLS team that would follow, I think that it started the building blocks for the sports growth and development. For example, our team didn't do very well finishing 24th, but we still had 1.2 million people come through the stands - that means that everybody attended all the other matches. Think about this, North Korea was here playing Argentina and there were 25,000 people watching! In what other sport do we see these kinds of numbers when Canada isn't even playing? We need to capitalize on this and we are. But the last piece of the puzzle is that our teams have to start performing. To me, that shows the promise and the relevancy of the game and now we just need to do more.
For our readers, what can be done to help grow, develop and support the game?
Assist in the integration of our Long Term Athlete Development program to local clubs. With this program, we will develop the players that we need to have in the provincial, national and World Cup stream. Support our Men's and Women's National Teams when they play and support the creation of the building of a new stadium in Ottawa. One of the cities that everybody talks about from the FIFA U20's was Ottawa - it was the sleeping giant in all of this and we owe it to all of the people here to bring more matches, but nothing will happen without a stadium. |
