Facts? No such facts have been published. They are based on a lot of assumptions. No one knows how much of a discount, if any, Westjet is giving CPL - I'd assume any company buying in bulk is going to get some good pricing - is CPL getting better than that? No one knows. It's very early days - and it's a huge gamble. I hope CPL survives - but I'm surprised that the media and many observers are being huge cheerleaders, rather than dispassionately neutral. At the same time, CPL picking fights with Ottawa is a disgrace, and alienates potential CPL supporters.
I'd love to read more about the league - if it's balanced. I don't see much other than cheer-leading and "gosh, it's better soccer than I expected"-type stuff. Please post links as they come up! Though if they ever add OneSoccer to Roku (like they had originally promised) or even Amazon Fire, I might just pony up to watch a bit here and there. I was tempted to wander up to Pioneer Village next week and check out the Voyageurs Cup game, but it's difficult to justify paying double what I'm paying to see TFC play their Voyageurs Cup game.
Everything is documented in The Voyageurs Forum which has been moved. There's been positivism and negativism so you will see both sides. Any links to articles were documented in those threads 1st thread / 2014 :https://www.canadiansoccernews.com/forums/topic/74582-canadian-premier-league/ https://www.canadiansoccernews.com/forums/forum/33-canadian-premier-league/ I recommend you check CBC scheduled CPL broadcast. In the meantime, Mediapro manages Onesoccer but with what they've been doing in Europe, improvements are coming York 9 play the V Cup on Wednesday and the league game on Saturday, might want to check the league game instead against Forge
I'm out of town on Saturday - and more interested in the Voygeurs Cup - would love to see a minnow win! CBC only broadcast 10 games this season, and have another 10 games on Gem - but they don't archive the ones on Gem.
I don't think the league has to. I expect the next MLS broadcast deal will be far better than the current deal (and by no means am I expecting it to be on par with the NFL). That new tv deal will allow MLS to position itself more as a 2nd tier league worldwide, allowing it to spur further growth in the coming decade especially post 2026.
Why are they unlikely to surpass a stagnant league, I agree for now that the CPL has to be a development league, not by choice of course, but there will come a time when CPL clubs have enough money to buy some really good players, also we haven't seen a CPL team play an MLS team yet, they could be better right now, on paper yes one would favor MLS, but the CPL brand many be better, the MLS has too many restrictions on it and because of this the league is not improving, it's peaked, it's as good as it's going to get, whereas the sky's the limit for CPL, when clubs start selling players for big money they will start to improve quite a bit.
Actually the CPL club, Forge, are ranked 6th by elo going into this, so yes they could do quite well here. The top 2 clubs are from Panama, Costa Rica is #3 and #5, Honduras #4. Trouble is Forge will play that Honduran club Olimpia if they get past the 1st phase, so that's a high level matchup almost right away.
The Forge beating up on other CPL clubs doesn’t mean anything going into this... Until CPL teams start playing teams from other leagues, that ELO rating is pure bunk..
Of course it's not bunk, they had to be given a rating going in, and that's what they got, you want to keep underrating them and thinking they are no good and thinking the CPL isn't a comparable league to these others, go ahead, we'll find out soon enough.
They just get a default number. It's useless for comparative purposes until they're actually playing interleague matches, which they haven't even done in Canada yet. I'm curious as to where you're seeing Concacaf club Elo ratings though.
I’m not underrating them... There simply isn’t enough data to draw a conclusion about where they stand.. They’ve only played CPL clubs at this point and the league as a whole has only had 4 games against Canadian lower division clubs.. We’ll find out some more info next week when the CPL teams take on the Fury and MLS clubs, but even that will be a limited data set...
What would have happened if Forge reached the Canadian Championship Semifinals? That conflicts with the Concacaf League.
That sounds great, until you remember that there's no fully-professional leagues in Concacaf outside the two in Mexico, and the three in the United States ... and now Canada. So they SHOULD be at worst top 6, given the financial resources. And possibly already better than USL League One. (though I've always figured that the Costa Rican and Honduran leagues may be fully-professional, no one has ever offered any proof, one way or another).
If the CPL and USL are fully professional then so is Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama. It's not as if their players need side jobs to get by or teams don't have stadiums, academies etc.. Teams like Saprissa, Olimpia and Herediano have directly exported players to La Liga and the Premier league Out of curiosity what would you consider a professional league? There are several that CONCACAF considers fully professional in CONCACAF. Nicaragua, and El Salvador also have professional leagues though the quality of play takes a dip. The only Central American league I wouldn't think of as professional is Belize's.
I'd consider any one paid to play as professional. Fully-professional would be doesn't have or need other jobs. If you have any sources to back up that any of these leagues are fully-professional (or not), I'd love to see - I've been looking for references for years. I've no doubt that some of the teams in these leagues are fully-professional. I'm referring to the entire league. For Panama, this column notes they aren't (in 2013 at least) fully-professsional - only working towards it - https://web.archive.org/web/20161031055356/http://panamafutbol.com/?p=11145
I have followed Central American soccer for several years and while it’s true Panama fairly recently didn’t have a pro league they do now. Players in the first division don’t have to work a second job to get by they are fully professional by that definition. In El Salvador some of the smaller clubs struggle to pay on time and sometimes they go under because they can’t pay but that doesn’t happen in Guatemala, Honduras, Panama or Costa Rica where the leagues have more money. The average salary in El Salvador which is at the low end of Central America is 1,000 to 2,000 monthly. That is enough for players to live on in Central America. At the other end Costa Rica’s top clubs pay more https://www.nacion.com/puro-deporte...12-millones/SYWRB7DIYJG35DN2LDA6BDIEGU/story/
Thanks - that's the best reference I've seen in a while. Though looking at the low end, they report that the minimum at Alajuelesne is ¢197,955 ... which equals $340. Gosh, is that a week? Year? Not sure that's fully professional. And it only lists 4 of the 12 teams. I've no doubt the top team is fully professional. But are the bottom teams ... such as Limón F.C.?
They are fully professional because they don't have to work second jobs. The guys at the end of the bench probably won't have long careers earning the minimum but that is true in any league. Most of the guys earn enough to live by Central American standards in all leagues except Belize. Like I said there are teams that go under because they can't make their finances work but again that isn't unique to Central America. The average monthly salary for the average person in Costa Rica is $750 monthly in the city and $450 in more rural areas. In El Salvador the average monthly salary is $227
Whether Central American leagues are professional or not, if the only basis for comparison between leagues are the CCL and CL, the Central American clubs in those will have payrolls higher than the average for their league.
In Guatemala the average salary is USD $1200-$1500 monthly. A journalist based in Guatemala told me this many years ago, Idk about now. But it's common knowledge that many other Central Americans like to play in Guatemala because of the better salaries. Mostly low level players who aren't really known in their countries.
The latest round of Canadian Championship provided some glimpses of the comparison between CPL and clubs playing in USSF leagues Halifax Wanderers (2-3) Ottawa Fury Both team aligned their best possible squad with some return from injuries Gutierrez was still hurt for Halifax Ottawa were absolutely clinical on those goals. Halifax underperformed overall in my opinion. Only Cavalry beat them at home this season and I found defense playing poorly this time. They played much better the 2nd half York9 (2-2) Montreal Impact Montreal played their regular forwards, Piette was at midfield and Brault-Guillard at defense with their regular back line. Keeper and midfield outside of Piette were rotated. Piatti was injured York9 at full strength York9 never looked out of place throughout the game. The pace was fast and quality was high. Miscommunication between Gasparatto and Ingham led to the 1st goal and Ingham inexperienced on the 2nd cost them the win. York should have won this game Cavalry (0-0) Vancouver Whitecaps Cavalry played at full strength Vancouver used their BEST XI This game was much closer than people anticipated. It was dead even until the last 10 minutes of the game where Cavalry almost won it. Vancouver coach Dos Santos acknowledged the high quality of CPL. He pointed out that there are guys that could play MLS immediately and they are looking to sign someone from Cavalry Dos Santos added that mistakes were made evaluating players in the past, also praising the league's quality Experts, analysts, fans and journalists mostly agrees that CPL is at the very least USL Championship level, only 3 months after starting the league. Halifax, which finished 4th overall in CPL spring season showed to be an evenly match against Ottawa, despite a disappointing performance. They are a defense first team with a fast counterattack game, defense let them down. York9 finished 6th overall in the spring season and that performance against Montreal proved that they are better than they've demonstrated in Spring. Personally, I think coaching is the issue. Gasparatto, Ingham and Aparicio stand out and might get national team attention. Cavalry, in my honest opinion is a much stronger side than the rest of the league. They are above USL Championship and sits somewhere in MLS lower tier due to not having DPs or TAM or what not. I sincerely do not believe that Cavalry finishes dead last in MLS. Special mention to Forge FC, who are in the same class as Cavalry and finished 2nd overall last spring. They were eliminated by Cavalry in the Canadian Championship but were the only team to beat Cavalry at home. Also, they will represent Canada in the CONCACAF League against Guatemala's Antigua. Just to say that the league's quality has exceeded expectations and it will only go higher from here as salary caps increases and teams can take full advantage of transfer windows as time goes by. More Canadians playing overseas will come home. The league always had an idea of the level of play it wanted overall, which was somewhere between USL and MLS. Cavalry and Forge achieved that. The rest are USL Championship level with the occasional brilliant performances. Consistency will come with time as chemistry is built and the right players are in the right chair. Regarding the gap... there is a gap. The best of CPL can rival the lower tier of MLS (Vancouver and co.) and/or team not doing well lately (Montreal with their star Piatti injured exposing a clear lack of depth). Calvalry star Pasquotti said as much after the Vancouver game in regards to technic and tactics. That gap will narrow over time as league budgets increases.