I have always found this board to be very educated and skilled at poking holes in cockamamie soccer ideas, so how about this one: There is obviously a desire on the part of MLS, USSF, Concacaf, and Liga MX for there to be a big continental club competition. As in international play, one problem with this is that Concacaf is made up of two behemoths and a bunch of minnows, which is awkward for competitive purposes. The CCL would be a stronger and more interesting tournament if there were bigger and better clubs to be fielded by the other nations. It's difficult to develop a club of that size in small, relatively poor countries. But wouldn't it be easier if there were a pan-Central American league and a pan-Caribbean league? Much like in Brazil you could retain the local (in this case national) championships as part of the season and then play the larger competition for the rest. Having a best-on-best competition for these clubs, high profile fixtures at that, would surely strengthen the game overall in these regions, right? What am I missing here?
I was going to mention travel costs but the domestic phase probably mitigates that somewhat. Interesting idea.
This year they started a Copa Premier Centroamericana. Although they are glorified preseason friendlies, it is a start. This year they started with only 8 teams. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Copa_Premier_Centroamericana A Caribbean League has also been tried already and it failed due to sponsorship, promotion and travel. It is a good idea though but it failed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caribbean_Professional_Football_League
And to be clear, there are sub-CCL international club competitions that already exist like this. There's a Caribbean Club Championship that's sort of a mini Champions League just for Caribbean clubs, and then they also just started a "CONCACAF League" that's kind of a cup competition for everyone but the US and Mexico. Much like with this Leagues Cup, there is a lot of money sloshing around throwing together random games, but not a lot of broader vision for the future of the confederation. I think it can be safely said that in order for the game to grow and develop in Central America and the Caribbean, there needs to be a higher level of competition for the top clubs. Those two regions are relatively geographically compact and have a common cultural understanding and affinity. They're natural places for a trans-national league. I think what's needed is leadership with the backing of US and Mexican interests with the vision and the understanding that strengthening the minnows is ultimately to everyone's benefit.
No one from the US or Mexico will invest money just for the interests of everyone. This is CONCACAF's doing. If they want to grow the area, investing on the Caribbean should be their priority. But it goes back to 'why should they invest if they aren't getting anything out of it?' Only way I see it working, assuming they do ever get the backing, is to separate the Caribbean Leagues into two areas to save on travel cost. One area of teams from Cuba, Aruba, Jamaica, Curacao Puerto Rico, Haiti and Dominican Republic. And the other area composed clubs from Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Suriname, St. Lucia, Martinique, Guadeloupe etc islands that are north of TnT. But the most important thing is financial backing.
Do you trust a CONCACAF president? The last 5 have been indicted for "corruption, racketeering, wire fraud, money laundering: and banned by FIFA". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_CONCACAF
CONCACAF has been investing money in the Caribbean. How else was Jack Warner able to stay in power and pay for his life of luxury? Seriously, the current president of Concacaf is no better. He even screwed over his former employers with the new WCQ process.
Then the only other option in the Caribbean is for several millionaires or billionaires come in and invest on a united Caribbean league, or several businesses or even governments to come to an agreement and "invest". But if it were that easy and most of all lucrative it would have had already be done. I just think there really isn't any profit for anyone to pull off something like this unfortunately.
It's the difference between thinking short term and long term. Something the soccer power structure the world over seems incapable of doing sadly. But it IS in their financial interest. There's a reason hand-to-mouth kleptocracies tend to remain poor.
Our Canadian overlord has issues, but I'm not aware of any illegal goings on from him. That said, the people around him are in fact horribly corrupt so it will be difficult to get much done.
Jack didnt invest in the game. He stole money from anywhere he could get his hands into and handed out chump change to his cronies and looked the other way when others stole, so long as they didnt touch what was his.
TBF, there isn't really a reason why Canada shouldn't be a top 6 CONCACAF club (by FIFA rating) and with the advent of CPL, the amount of money the three MLS teams are dumping into development, and other associated restructuring of their youth development system, there is even less reason why they can't be going forward as well.
I suspect the main obstacle is the people who have been involved so far, though. The only attempted league that actually played any matches had some absurdly low attendances even for the region. If you can't get 50 people to show up to a game in a city as large as Kingston, that speaks to some serious deficiencies in marketing.
It seems odd that someplace like Jamaica can't have a superclub. There are plenty of great athletes there. If they were coached up from a younger age, teams could make money from selling players.
TBF after 2022 it won't matter as their road to the WC will get a lot easier. Expanding the WC is going to make it easier for the outliers to make it. Of course, a few Canadian posters on BS would beg to differ on the impact that the 3 MLS teams are having and have had.............not that I agree with them. The CPL and it's impact on the CMNT remains to be seen, and will take years, if not a decade or two to be known.