Since the CSL vs MLS thread has been mostly about the CSL ability to get off the ground, I might as well start a thread just about the CSL and how it survive in Canada and the 21st century. So if you have a comment about the CSL, post here. Thank you. PS - This thread is Blizzard's idea.
Well, let's see if it takes off. Perhaps it will be a fresh start with less animosity (but I do have my doubts). With luck, the content will at least be on topic. Obviously there is an apetite for the thread.
A canadian soccer league on it's own cannot survive. Top Canadian cities have to be in MLS to be taken serious. The CSL has beentried twice and failed twice, it just won't work.
As of this moment the will just isn't there for a pan Canadian league. That's not to say there won't or can't be, it's just at this place in time there has been no call for it. The CUSL idea was abandoned largely before it even got under way. Committed ownership is the way for a new Canadian league to survive but unfortunately the only ones with the resources to have come out of the woodwork (Saputo and Kerfoot) haven't hinted about a Canadian league. I think our best hope is for something similar to the CHL to foster youth development.
It probably can't. I just don't see it happening in the near future... unfortunately. The demand for such a league just isn't there.
I agree. I think that any hope for a Canadian league will be for it to evolve from the top down, rather than from the grassroots up. Why? Because I think that if the MLS teams are established in Toronto and Vancouver, these teams will generate media coverage that a CSL can't (thats Canadian reality). I would hope that this media coverage leads to greater interest in soccer, leading to smaller centres establishing USL teams. The CSA could then start an all-Canadian club championship like the FA Cup or US Open Cup, to really put the spotlight on our teams. Way down the road (and I mean in 15 -20 years), if we have 6-8 well financed and well supported USL teams in Canada, they could be combined with the MLS teams to form a CSL. But at the moment there is not sufficient interest in soccer to support a CSL. Ironically it may be that bringing MLS to Canada could be the catalyst that generates the kind of interest in soccer that we need for a CSL to happen down the road.
We are producing lots more players than before, and at a higher calibre. Nash and Magloire werent big news 10 years ago. MLS is the best way to jumpstart soccer development in Canada right now.
As much as it pains me to agree with Joe, a system like the chl for our young soccer players would ssem to be the best to hope for at the moment, with the best of them hopefully getting jobs in europe/s america or at worst the MLS .
yes we are producing more players and thats the good news although the higher calibre is stretching it a bit. Most Cabadian players in europe are playing for small English/Scottish league clubs or even smaller european clubs. When Canadians start signing for clubs like Liverpool,Celtic,Man Utd or dare i say it Barcelona or Real Madrid then the cailbre will be raised.