[Solid Snake]

Frankly, Canada's success is going to be based off of the MLS. Canada will have to rely on the youth development and scouting of its 3 MLS teams.

What I think will happen is that the MLS and the USL will continue to forge closer relations and eventually become one league system, just without promotion/relegation. This is already happening with MLS teams now having their reserve sides compete in the USL Pro. Eventually teams from major cities (such as Ottawa, San Antonio, Minneapolis) will create a team in the USL, and the top NASL teams will change leagues to the USL.

Well-supported teams in the future USL, with proper stadiums and wealthy owners, would eventually seek to apply for an MLS expansion spot.

The MLS has donenothing for the men's national team. The MLS discriminates against Canadians. Americans are considered domestic players while Canadians are considered International players

The Canadian teams have a minimum of Canadian players that have to be in their line up (3-5...don't remember) while american players are considered as domestic players in Canadian clubs.

This means that Canadian players barely gets any playing time in MLS. Some of the players on the National teams play more minutes in International friendlies than at the club Level which makes it impossible to have a decent team. I think MLS doesn't even draft in Canadian universities... The MLS was build to improve the US team, not Canada. If you're the coach of the LA Galaxy and you have the choice between picking a Brazilian player or a Canadian player, who do you pick?

A Canadian 1st Division league guarantees that our players gets to play all the time and actually gets a chance to improve which will make our national team that much better.

 

[TOareaFan]

The MLS has donenothing for the men's national team. The MLS discriminates against Canadians. Americans are considered domestic players while Canadians are considered International players

The Canadian teams have a minimum of Canadian players that have to be in their line up (3-5...don't remember) while american players are considered as domestic players in Canadian clubs.

MLS roster rules do not require Canadian teams to have any Canadians in their line-up. They must have 3 Canadians on their roster of 24 players but they never have to play.

This means that Canadian players barely gets any playing time in MLS. Some of the players on the National teams play more minutes in International friendlies than at the club Level which makes it impossible to have a decent team. I think MLS doesn't even draft in Canadian universities... The MLS was build to improve the US team, not Canada. If you're the coach of the LA Galaxy and you have the choice between picking a Brazilian player or a Canadian player, who do you pick?

That question is tougher to answer than you imply. If I am picking between two players of equal skill level, I think the Galaxy would go with the Canadian simply because he is likely cheaper (doesn't have a brazilian premium and has more choices of where to play) but the comparison is never that simple as teams scouting Brazil for MLS players are seldom doing so to get someone that is just as good as the next available Canadian player.

All 3 Canadian MLS teams are doing a decent job producing young Canadians.....TFC probably plays more of them than most (at any given time you can/will see 4-6 Canadians on the pitch for TFC)....where the roster rules hurt is when they think a player has to move on....unlike the US "domestics" who have 19 (soon to be 22) places they can ply their trade...the Canadian "domestics" either have to a) convince one of the other 2 Canadian teams to sign them or b) convince a US based team that even though they were considered not good enough by one team for a domestic spot they are good enough to take up one of their "international spots" or c) leave the league.

It is all a bit messy.

A Canadian 1st Division league guarantees that our players gets to play all the time and actually gets a chance to improve which will make our national team that much better.[/QUOTE]

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

The MLS has donenothing for the men's national team. The MLS discriminates against Canadians. Americans are considered domestic players while Canadians are considered International players

The Canadian teams have a minimum of Canadian players that have to be in their line up (3-5...don't remember) while american players are considered as domestic players in Canadian clubs.

This means that Canadian players barely gets any playing time in MLS. Some of the players on the National teams play more minutes in International friendlies than at the club Level which makes it impossible to have a decent team. I think MLS doesn't even draft in Canadian universities... The MLS was build to improve the US team, not Canada. If you're the coach of the LA Galaxy and you have the choice between picking a Brazilian player or a Canadian player, who do you pick?

A Canadian 1st Division league guarantees that our players gets to play all the time and actually gets a chance to improve which will make our national team that much better.

I agree that that should be changed immediately. It makes no sense to include Canadian franchises and not consider Canadian players as domestic. I do hope the Canadian teams and Canadian FA lobby the MLS to be more considerate.

But my point is that a rising tide raises all boats. As the MLS becomes stronger, more respectable and more financially secured, all MLS teams including our 3 Canadian franchises will build and develop strong youth systems and academies and reserve sides. Local youth developed by Vancouver, Toronto or Montreal will be Canadian, not American.

 

[TOareaFan]

I agree that that should be changed immediately. It makes no sense to include Canadian franchises and not consider Canadian players as domestic. I do hope the Canadian teams and Canadian FA lobby the MLS to be more considerate.

I believe I read that considering Canadians as domestic while calling any other nationality foreign/international for employment purposes is actually illegal under US employment law....I don't think MLS is being inconsiderate....they just don't want to see the soccerdon go to jail.

 

[Solid Snake]

I believe I read that considering Canadians as domestic while calling any other nationality foreign/international for employment purposes is actually illegal under US employment law....I don't think MLS is being inconsiderate....they just don't want to see the soccerdon go to jail.

maybe i'm missing something but how does the NHL, NBA, NFL and MLB does it? Maybe FIFA rules are the reason why it gets so confusing.

 

[TOareaFan]

maybe i'm missing something but how does the NHL, NBA, NFL and MLB does it? Maybe FIFA rules are the reason why it gets so confusing.

Those leagues do not have any domestic/international quotas at all. MLS commissioner has stated that the legal opinions they have received is that if they give one country's nationals (in this case Canada) a preferred employment situation it would open up legal challenges from players of other countries to get equal treatment to the Canadians.

 

[Solid Snake]

I agree that that should be changed immediately. It makes no sense to include Canadian franchises and not consider Canadian players as domestic. I do hope the Canadian teams and Canadian FA lobby the MLS to be more considerate.

They did and MLS started to soften their position when the CSA announced a Canada 1st Division. The MLS commissioner said that changes regarding Canadians was coming soon

But my point is that a rising tide raises all boats. As the MLS becomes stronger, more respectable and more financially secured, all MLS teams including our 3 Canadian franchises will build and develop strong youth systems and academies and reserve sides. Local youth developed by Vancouver, Toronto or Montreal will be Canadian, not American.

I agree but once they graduate from those academies, where do they go??? Stay on the reserve list? Be eternally on loan in the NASL and USL league? On the bench? They will never surpass themselves if they don't play.

At least with a Canadian league, they have somewhere to go and play at a higher competitive level, more often. Those who are truly good will be offered contracts by MLS teams or beyond. If they don't play, they'll never get better and our Canadian players don't play often, even those in Canadian clubs

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

I'm highly skeptical of the quality of a Canadian First Division. It'd be significantly worse than NASL/USL Pro.

Should the MLS and USL continue their partnership, it might actually be preferable to have Canadian players play in Toronto/Montreal/Vancouver reserve teams in USL Pro, and have teams like Ottawa Fury or Edmonton join as USL Pro division teams.


The legal issues surrounding employment are indeed a problem. What about making the MLS officially a joint American-Canadian league? Not sure where FIFA stands on this but it happens elsewhere in the world. The French League system is technically joint French-Monagesque, and the Swiss League system is joint Swiss-Lichtensteiner. For a while teams from New Zealand competed in the Australian A-League too.

 

[TOareaFan]

The legal issues surrounding employment are indeed a problem. What about making the MLS officially a joint American-Canadian league? Not sure where FIFA stands on this but it happens elsewhere in the world. The French League system is technically joint French-Monagesque, and the Swiss League system is joint Swiss-Lichtensteiner. For a while teams from New Zealand competed in the Australian A-League too.

The legal issues (as I understood them) have nothing to do with league or fifa rules but with US immigration law. So, if a league does not have any rules (like the NHL for example) any and all foreign nationals can play there as long as they each, individually, can qualify to work in America under one of the plethora of rules/programs that allow that.

The problem starts when the league (as MLS has) decides to have a preferred employee category based on nationality. By giving preference to domestic players they have to limit that to Americans....if they extend that preferred designation to one foreign national group (Canadians) then they open up a challenge from any other foreign national player/group.

Unlike the European Union, the free trade agreement in North America did not include the freedom of labour....just freedom of goods and services.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Sheesh, could we wait until Toronto or even the entire country can field a contending men's team before we bid on hosting the world cup? We wouldn't even last long enough for a Brazilian blow out.

Imagine if Canada won zero medals at the Vancouver Olympics. That's what we'll see at Toronto's World Cup, with the three medals going to the best teams, and nothing to Canada other than the bill.

 

[TOareaFan]

Sheesh, could we wait until Toronto or even the entire country can field a contending men's team before we bid on hosting the world cup? We wouldn't even last long enough for a Brazilian blow out.

Didn't stop South Africa, Korea/Japan, USA, Qatar.

Imagine if Canada won zero medals at the Vancouver Olympics. That's what we'll see at Toronto's World Cup, with the three medals going to the best teams, and nothing to Canada other than the bill.

You do realize you could have taken Canada out of that last bit and replaced it with Brazil this year?

I have been clear that I don't think we are ever hosting a men's world cup anytime in the forseable future....but being in contention for one of the top 3 spots is not one of the criteria.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Okay, forget that we have no chance of contending, but how about the fact that Canada hasn't even qualified for the World Cup since the latter half of the last century, and only that once since 1930. Perhaps that's the motivation for hosting, being Canada's only chance of participating in the World Cup for the forseeable future?

Can't we bid to host a sport Canadians are actually good at? How about the World Hockey Championship? Who's hosting it after Bellarus?

 

[Johnny Au]

Okay, forget that we have no chance of contending, but how about the fact that Canada hasn't even qualified for the World Cup since the latter half of the last century, and only that once since 1930. Perhaps that's the motivation for hosting, being Canada's only chance of participating in the World Cup for the forseeable future?

Can't we bid to host a sport Canadians are actually good at? How about the World Hockey Championship? Who's hosting it after Bellarus?

Ask the Qataris. They never even made it to the FIFA World Cup. They very much bought their way to the tournament.

 

[TOareaFan]

Okay, forget that we have no chance of contending, but how about the fact that Canada hasn't even qualified for the World Cup since the latter half of the last century, and only that once since 1930. Perhaps that's the motivation for hosting, being Canada's only chance of participating in the World Cup for the forseeable future?

if we were to host the next world cup, using the world cup to get our 2nd appearance in the world cup would tie us with Japan for second in the list of "fewest appearances at the world cup before hosting it" (assuming the 2022 tournament goes ahead in Qatar as planned).

Can't we bid to host a sport Canadians are actually good at? How about the World Hockey Championship? Who's hosting it after Bellarus?

Czech Republic in 2015, Russia in 2016, Germany & France in 2017 and Denmark in 2018. The biggest roadblock to Canada hosting this tournament is having the guaranteed availability of our top rinks....this tournament kicks off around the first round of the NHL playoffs....so we could, in theory, guarantee the availability of the Air Canada Centre but I am sure you need more than one rink

 

[MisterF]

lol...even in the hockey world nobody cares about the world championships. The hockey equivalent of the World Cup is the Olympics, which is pretty realistic for us to host every couple decades. If the NHL ever opts out of the Olympics and starts up the hockey World Cup again, we could host that just as often if not more.

Nothing in the link I posted prevents joint bids from being made....it only says they will not be successful....like the two joint bids for 2018.....no idea what FIFA would have done if one of those joint bids (Belguim/Netherlands was the other) would have won as the only other solo bid outside of Russia was England and it was the first bid eliminated.

Anyway, whether joint bids can or can't be successful is only part of the issue.....the main one would be that joint bids tend to come from smaller countries and are typically 50/50 bids from equal sized (+/-) nations (footballing infrastructure wise) where the hosting would be shared equally.....that is not the case in any fantasized USA/Canada bid.....the USA does not need Canada for a bid and it is not clear to me why they would ever bother with us when, at least to some, the joint nature of the bid is bringing on a negative that they don't need.

This is what I've been thinking all along while reading this conversation. The US doesn't gain anything from sharing a bid with Canada and they have shown in the past that they're more than capable of hosting on their own. They won't share the spotlight if they don't have to.

I'm highly skeptical of the quality of a Canadian First Division. It'd be significantly worse than NASL/USL Pro.

Should the MLS and USL continue their partnership, it might actually be preferable to have Canadian players play in Toronto/Montreal/Vancouver reserve teams in USL Pro, and have teams like Ottawa Fury or Edmonton join as USL Pro division teams.


The legal issues surrounding employment are indeed a problem. What about making the MLS officially a joint American-Canadian league? Not sure where FIFA stands on this but it happens elsewhere in the world. The French League system is technically joint French-Monagesque, and the Swiss League system is joint Swiss-Lichtensteiner. For a while teams from New Zealand competed in the Australian A-League too.

Are you really comparing Canada's potential to tiny principalities like Lichtenstein? Even New Zealand is a fraction of our size. This kind of defeatism is really holding sports back in this country. We're more than capable of having our own first division league and development system. I can't think of another country our size that inserts soccer teams in another country's league instead of developing its own. The teams we already have in MLS and NASL show that the demand is there for a league that would be much closer to MLS than you think. Soccer is such a niche sport in the States that it wouldn't take much compete - it's not like we'd be competing with American juggernauts like the NBA or MLB. And even if a Canadian league were on a lower level than MLS, so what? We don't seem to mind that MLS is on a lower level than the Mexican league, who we compete with in CONCACAF. Why have TFC play in a mediocre league like MLS when they could be in Liga MX?

Similar to the point about the US sharing a World Cup bid with Canada, they also don't gain anything by making MLS a joint league. That would just dilute the development of American soccer, which is the whole reason it was created. MLS has American interests first.