If you're a Canadian soccer fan, the situation is simple and clear. There's your team; go cheer for it.
But if you're a member of the Canadian Soccer Association's board of directors, the situation is far more muddled.
The board is a sprawling, unwieldy group – which includes representatives from all the provinces and territories. For these people, the first loyalty is the interests of their own home turf. Then, inevitably, they have to answer to whatever political deals and allegiances they have made in the service of that turf. Once we're through all that, then they can think about the needs of Canada's national soccer teams.
In other words, World Cup qualifying is not their top priority. It's more likely to be job number three.
Fairness time: there has been talk of streamlining this board. A Deloitte & Touche report commissioned by the CSA earlier in the decade (and soft-pedalled to the sidelines for several years) absolutely insists on it. The plan is to replace the provincial reps with four new regional reps. The in-fighting continues, in other words, but doesn't have as many votes. Oh, and it's still going to be essentially the same people calling the shots.
Once again, I don't seriously question the good intentions of individual CSA members. If you want to read about corruption and greed in Canadian soccer, you'll have to look somewhere else. This is simply about a governance structure which inevitably undermines our nation's World Cup hopes – fatally, in the case of the men's qualifying campaign that died in a hail of Honduran goals in San Pedro Sula on Saturday night.
This board can never make the national teams their top priority. They have too great a responsibility to the amateur game. Their fund-raising capabilities are extremely limited, as well. International soccer in Canada is funded by a small federal grant, a thin slice of player-registration fees and whatever gate receipts and television money the national teams can generate.
It came to $13-million this year – for everything. As proved by the long slow boat ride our lads had to endure on the way to the Martinique game, the money is laughably inadequate. It's the biggest reason why Canada's frightful year-long search for a head coach ended with the present in-house selection of the over-matched and unloved Dale Mitchell.
Shrinking the board won't make anyone at the present CSA a good professional soccer executive. The split mandate, with so much focus on the amateur game, is a World Cup anchor made all the heavier by the near-total lack of available funds.
The national teams desperately need to be broken out of, and away from, this endless bureaucratic mess. They need to be properly guided and funded, by a new professional organization entirely dedicated to the goal of getting all our teams – male, female, junior, senior, indoor, outdoor – to whatever World Cup they are eligible for.
“Canada” can't be someone's compromise agenda. It needs to be somebody's job.
The time for reform is over. We need a revolution.
Tomorrow, we'll examine what that might look like.
Onward!
