Ok, so as you probably know, there are talks of Toronto possibly being awarded a franchise as they could well be on their way toward building a footy-specific stadium and investing 20m USD into MLS. Knowing that, and the likely possibility that the Toronto franchise might well act as Athletico Bilbao and other Basque region clubs in Spain but in MLS. (Signing only Basque players). What is the general feel in the Footballing community about such a thing? Oh and one last question; would you be apposed to the team being called Torontos Juniors?
I think it's a rubbish idea. Canada needs it's own league or more teams in the A-League, not one team in the unstable MLS. Certainly the past has proven that there are better cities in Canada more deserving of a team if there was to be an MLS side in Canada. Besides Toronto is no closer to building a 30000 seat footy specific stadium that I am.
Essentially (and this is for the majority): - People in Toronto are all for it. - People outside Toronto are against it.
What makes the MLS "unstable"? {answer: sour grapes} Its not like the A-League hasn't dropped/added teams in the same manner that MLS did with Miami and Tampa Bay. For instance - the Milwaukee Rampage. Its not like the team was bought. They went bankrupt and their rights were handed over to the new team. And to say that there are "better cities more deserving of a team". Is that based purely on Toronto's on-again/off-again relationship with soccer or is it colored by your view that MLS is not a Major League and that any regional town that can gather 10,000 fans around a level piece of ground is good enough? Remind me again about the venues that the Vancouver Whitecaps and Canada's other A-League teams play in? I don't think that they are state of the art by any means. MLS may not be running with the big boys yet, but the gulf between the A-League is only going to grow wider as more and more of the teams cross the threshold into profitability and as Chicago, LA, Dallas and sooner or later the Metrostars move into new stadiums. At that point, other investors are going to be taking a much longer look at one of the best values in sports.
Personally I don't want to see 'one' Canadian team in the MLS. I would rather see more teams in the A-League.
It is funner and easier for Canadians to spend some of their energy planning their own league, while devoting most of it to disparaging the US league.
Boy you sure read a lot of incorrect things into a post. MLS is unstable because it has what two or three owners? No not sour grapes. I hop one of those owners doesn't decide to pull out. I hope your MLS grows to become a great league with each team having an individual owner. As it is now it is still a very young league, survival is still it's main concern. Now to your second point. Since Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal all need new soccer specific stadiums why not talk about getting a new stadium built in Vancouver and Montreal? Both cities support what they have now in the A-League far better than they do in Toronto, and if you remember the last major soccer league in North America both Montreal and Vancouver outdrew Toronto by a great distance. You do know some of the history of the NASL don't you? Vancouver was the second most popular team in that league. My opinions are not coloured by what I consider a major or minor league. In fact none of that matters to me. I like the leagues and sports that I like regardless of how major or minor they are considered by people more concerned with how popular they are. As it is I prefer the A-League over MLS (solely because thats where my team plays-I care more about my team than what league they play in). The biggest problem with an MLS team in Toronto is that the CSA (and many of the so called Canadian soccer supporters) seems to think that it will do, and Canada will never need to have it's own league. Myopic thinking indeed.
Its funny, you must not be able to read. Nobody is disparaging the MLS at all. Do you try to find disparaging comments in other peoples posts where none exist?
Sorry if I jumped to conclusions. I guess I have just been reading too many DoyleG posts in many of the threads related to this one. Many of these threads (current and in the past) have been highly critical of the MLS, dismissing it as the equivalent of the Conference League or Third Division in England and taking great pride in the fact that Paul Peschidelo (I know spelled wrong) and Jason De Vos play in FAR BETTER leagues. And while you are right that MLS is not to be envied for having only 3 owners (not quite true since there are many other investors who are not operators), this probably leads to more stability in a pure sense. The league has to do what is good for the league in the early going - often sacrificing what is best for individual teams - hence SEM. But the fact that the commissioner only has three operators to get on the same page probably makes it easier to keep things grounded and realistic. As more and more of the teams turn a profit and the league lines up more stadium deals and different television arrangements - I think that you will see non-soccer freak investors start expressing more interest in buying in to MLS. At that point, Anschutz and Hunt will probably be glad to sell franchises. That is one of the reasons why this expansion cycle is so interesting. Garber is obviously bluffing on some of the cities that he is indicating as possible expansion targets, but he is doing so to a) put pressure on realistic, already interested new owner/operators and b) sound out potential new owner/operators. Having more owner/operators of the ilk of Malcolm Glazer and Ken Horowitz would not make MLS more stable. It would make it less so.
My main point was/is that many Canadian cities need new stadiums, why should Toronto be the city that we focus on. The main reason that we keep hearing that Toronto deserves it is because the National team needs a home in the east as foreign teams don't want to play out west. Thats complete bull, foreign teams don't want to play in Canada at all, but it's a good excuse. If that were the case, a new stadium should be built in Halifax, they need a stadfium and it could double as a CFL stadium. Thats would be really east, foreign teams couldn't complain about playing there. Now the CSA talks about getting an MLS side for Canada. So they choose Toronto, when Montreal and Vancouver have shown more solid support for club soccer that Toronto has. Of course this won't happen, unless some corporation wants to build a stadium there, the CSA wouldn't be able to build a snowman with their money and power.
My understanding is simply that Toronto is on the books because someone in the area is willing to put up the 20M USD to get into the league as well as build a stadium. I suppose, that if the CSA built a stadium in one of the other cities mentioned, then they would indeed be candidates as well. However, maybe the CSA was not for negotiating the release of these teams, Impact/Whitecaps, from their current deals with the A-league or the management setup. It could just be that the CSA wants to sort of put more behind a new team so that they have more influence in the General Management of the club rather than dealing with existing power structures. But I am merely speculating, I could just as easily be well wide of the mark.
As far as I know nobody in Toronto is interested in putting forward the money to build a stadium and pay the expansion fee to the MLS. All it has been so far is idle talk by the CSA, and in the process has created all this talk in Toronto about them getting an MLS franchise and forgetting that they presently have a team in the A-League.
The question is simple. Why waste $30m Cdn on an MLS venture when such money can be invested in a system that already works (The A-League system)?
Depends on how you see it. In one sense the CSA, it could be argued, is wasting money by not funding the existing A-league sides. But on the otherhand, in MLS the competition level is higher. So you could also argue that the CSA are doing a sort of Braedeton Academy for Canadian players who haven't yet made it into Europe. Either you improve what you have, with lower competition but more players, or you invest at getting fewer, albeit better developed, players higher quality of competition giving themselves a bigger shopping window to put themselves in, and at the same time develop enough Canadian talent to really be a force in the confederation.
Given the number of Storm, Whitecap, Lynx, and Impact players that play overseas now, the current system is much more superior. It gives people a much betetr chance to be seen by overseas teams than a single team in MLS with only a few Canadians.
Re: Re: Canadian View of Possible MLS expansion? I'm more or less totally ignorant to what the CSA's job is. Is it their job to get Canadian players better jobs outside of Canada or is it to promote the game inside of Canada? Myself, I have no interest in how many Canadians go out of the country to play (probably makes me in the 1% minority of Canadian soccer supporters".) I'm more interested in seeing the pro game grow in Canada at whatever level. I'd like to see more Canadian cities with pro teams, and I'd like to see us with our own league. Most Canadian soccer fans seem to spend all their time worrying how to get our players playing out of the country than they do about the sport in our country.
Re: Re: Re: Canadian View of Possible MLS expansion? That's an interesting point. Since I live in Saskatchewan, I never really considered the possibility of the pro game coming anywhere where I live. So I put all of my energy into the Canadian national team. I support the A-League and watch as many games with Canadian team as possible, but the outcome doesn't bother me too much. The national team is the be all and end all really and that's why I like to see our players get the best challenge possible. Yet I totally see where you're coming from. I've never really thought about it like that though. There's nothing wrong IMO with putting your local side ahead of the national team. I'm kind of waffling on MLS in Canada myself. I'm not sure it will work, I don't think we'd be very competitive because I don't think we could draw our best young players to stay here. I also fear that it would be the death of the A-League esp at a time when we're almost at five teams and could have six or seven in two or three years. With Vancouver's struggles of two years ago (financially) and Calgary's current situation, those teams need to have people rally behind them and the CSA seems to be saying, "forget them, let's do something completely different and out of left field." I also expect the foreign team under single entity to get screwed over worse than any other team in the league. Not that I'm a long standing MLS allocation conspiracy theorist or anything. Now on the upside, the level of play in MLS is better than the A-League (not tons better, but better, I know that's going to start an argument) and it's better than where a lot of our European-based players are. There's no guarantee, but I would expect the national media (Toronto-based as they are) to give the Toronto team far more coverage than all the other domestic teams in the country combined. I don't think that's right, I just think it would happen. I can see Sportsnet or the Score showing a lot of the games and that sort of coverage giving a boost to the domestic game and the sport in general. As a little tyke I had Toronto Blizzard PJs (though I was a Whitecaps fan) and I just can't imagine ever being able to buy Toronto Lynx pajamas for my (mythical) kids someday, but maybe the MLS team would have that presence. Bottom line is that I don't think it's going to happen and I hope it doesn't happen for at least 5 or 6 years (though I want the stadium before then) so the A-League teams can become more stable. cheers, hobbes
Those that say an MLS team(s) would be benficial are often kidding themselves. The idea of having teams full of Canadian talent is a long shot. The rules would have to be changed completly to allow Canadian players into the league. This will come with the other MLS owners stating "If they get special treatment, why not us?" It would even be difficult for possible fans to relate to an MLS team. A-League teams are more easier for fans to relate to since most of the players come from the same community.How can fans follow team that is thousands of miles away? As those that say Kingz FC in New Zealand can be a sucess, the NSL doesn't have the import restrictions that the MLS has. The team hasn't made the playoff since it's inception.
I don't know if I can agree with you there, although the points you make afterward are very interesting. The thing is the rules would only have to be slightly modified...it simply a case of where it says Americans are non foreign, you erase and put Canadian, but keep all other rules as they apply to each team in the states. The other arguments I cannot comment on in all fairness because I am not Canadian and am not informed about the A-league at all.
It was noted on SoccerCentral today that the owner of the Lynx felt betrayed by the talk of Toronto and MLS. Would an owner be interested in a league that doesn't give the right to negotiate player contracts? or which players he gets? This turns off both possible owners and fans. What annoys a lot of us is that a Toronto team will become another "Team Canada" project. That wouldn't sit well with fans either. The A-League, especially here in Canada, is a comuunity based team. Most of the player come from the community where the team is based. Given the number of A-League players that have made the jump to Europe and the Nats have shown that the A-League is the way to go.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Canadian View of Possible MLS expansion? Well I must clarify that I support the National team as well. I've been at Swangard for WCQ's with my huge Canadian flag providing refuge for fellow Canadian supporters when we've been out numbered in the past. I don't really put one side ahead of the other. Theres no worry with the national team, it always sorts itself out. The top players available, who want to play for Canada will play. It's not my fault the national team never plays home games except for WCQ. On the other hand I can watch the Whitecaps play at least 14 meaningful games a season. But thats not the reason I care more about the domestic game. In fact it's looking more like I'm not going to be in Vancouver much longer. But I'll still want to see the domestic game grow, and think that there should be more of an effort to have a national league here (start at the A-League level) and grow from there. But we can never do it if we don't start, and the CSA creating an MLS pipe dream to distract any other ideas is crap. (Sorry I lost my concentration so that an abrupt end)!
No offense to Krammerhead but this illustrates another problem with Canada. The people interested are mostly supporters, not reporters, so we're pretty much all on the inside looking in, only receiving the info that those in the know want us to have. A reporter would go digging for new information, get something exclusive, etc.