Perhaps the more interesting result came in the second game: North Korea defeated Brazil 1-0, a result you might think is quite an upset. But, really, it’s not. North Korea reached the final of the previous U-20Women’s World Cup, losing 2-1 to the United States in the final, and won the previous edition of the competition in 2006, as well as the 2008 FIFA U-17 Women’s  World Cup.

It’s worth taking a brief look at the history of this tournament since it began in 2002 to get a sense of what we can expect in Germany this month.

The tournament has been a bright spot in women’s soccer, since the first final in Edmonton, Canada drew a crowd of 47,784 at Commonwealth Stadium to see the home team go down 1-0 to the United States in September 2002. That crowd was no aberration: much like the 1999 Women’s World Cup that saw the US draw 90,185 fans to the Rose Bowl for the final, the home crowd got behind their team, 37,194 watching the semi-final as Canada defeated Brazil on penalty kicks, Chrstine Sinclair playing a starring role and a young Marta on view in Commonwealth Stadium.

The decision to stage games at Commonwealth Stadium, a vast venue in Edmonton built for the 1978 Commonwealth Games, was controversial: FIFA officials, visiting in 2001, had warned games would be played to an empty venue. But though some games were poorly attended, Commonwealth Stadium averaged a healthy 19,841 per game. Considerably smaller crowds attended smaller venues in Vancouver and Victoria, but an overall average of 11,351 per game for the duration of the competition far surpassed FIFA’s expectations.

That, again, was an echo of 1999: FIFA had wanted the Women’s World Cup games to be played at small venues on the east coast of the United States, but the American organising committee, gutsily led by Marla Messing, went for huge stadia and the decision paid-off: it felt like a big event, and became a big event.

Similarly, that 2002 U-19 Women’s World Cup in Canada, featuring 12 teams, received extensive local media coverage  according to FIFA’s technical report. The final was watched by almost 1 million viewers on Canada’s Sportsnet station. Not unimportantly, the tournament also provided vital experience for young referees: 12 female referees and 12 assistants from 20 countries officiated the 26 games, most of them making their debuts in official FIFA competition. Only two red cards were issued in the entire tournament.

The next U-19 Women’s World Cup was held in Thailand in November 2004, won by Germany, adding that title to their Women’s World Cup win the previous year in the United States, and pre-cursing their second senior world title in 2007. As in 2002, attendance was very strong for the host nation’s games, with 40,000 attending Thailand’s opener: though unfortunately, they faced Germany, and were thumped 6-0. Thailand was clearly not ready for this level of competition, losing their next game 7-0 to Canada, and their tournament ending with a 5-0 defeat to Australia. This is surely the worst performance by a host nation in the history of FIFA competition. Still, the crowds for the latter stages were decent, with 23,000 attending the final, Germany beating China 2-0. Brazil were eliminated at the semi-final stage, but Marta still took home the Golden Ball for best player. An overall average attendance of 11,089 was a positive.

The 2006 U-20 Women’s World Cup saw it move to a third different continent, hosted by Russia, and it would feature a surprising winner, with North Korea taking their first FIFA trophy: though perhaps that shouldn’t be considered a surprise, as the North Koreans had been dominating Asian competition in recent years. Indeed, the rapid development of women’s soccer in Asia as a whole, seen in the history of the U-20 tournament, is a remarkable story.

The age limit for the World Cup had been raised by one year to make it a U-20 event, with FIFA also instituting a U-17 FIFA Women’s World Cup, beginning play in 2008. The tournament was also expanded to 16 teams. Interestingly, the average age of players was almost exactly the same as in 2004 (18 years and 11 months), despite the new age limit. The tournament was a bit of a disappointment; European teams were weakened by it nearly coinciding with the UEFA U-19 competition, and attendance was extremely poor, barely reaching four figures for most games.

The hosts, Russia, went out at the quarter-final stage to China. The final between China and North Korea, the first between two Asian teams in global FIFA competition, was unfortunately a mudbath, played in pelting rain. According to the official report, the players were “enveloped in mud”, but “the Koreans, however, were not deterred by the conditions in the slightest and they attacked relentlessly with great determination.” The Koreans crushed the Chinese 5-0 in front of 8,500 soaked spectators. Curiously, no North Korean was named in FIFA’s top three players of the tournament, China’s Xiaoxu Ma taking the Golden Ball. Overall, with an average crowd of just 1,644 per game and a total of 52,630 spectators for the entire tournament, the U-20 Women’s World Cup had taken something of a step back.

Chile, 2008 U-20 Women’s World Cup host, presented a much greater success: the tournament saw more goals than ever (3.5 goals per game), and a decent enough average of 6,749 fans per game. More importantly, the host nation used the tournament as a springboard for women’s soccer in Chile, now in strong shape (one of its clubs, Everton, came fourth in the first Women’s Copa Libertadores staged in 2009). The Chilean government, then led by Michelle Bachelet, affirmed its support of the competition by rebuilding four stadia for the event and by supporting a new league championship for women. Unfortunately, results did not go well for Chile, losing all three games and exiting at the group stage, but the seeds were sown for future growth: surely the point of the competition existing. The United States won the U-20 Women’s World Cup for the first time since 2002, defeating the defending champions North Korea in the final 2-1 in front of 12,000 fans.

That brings us to 2010, and the tournament in Germany, which has a particular importance with the senior Women’s World Cup to be held there in 2011. Strong crowds and interest in this U-20 competition could presage what should be the most successful Women’s World Cup in terms of global media attention and attendance since USA ’99, given the strength of women’s soccer in Germany and the lack of any major competing global competitions next summer.

The MLS Whitecaps are trying to tie in their identity to the history of the Whitecaps in Vancouver, most notably to the NASL-era Whitecaps from 1974 to 1984, including their 1979 championship. So, on the back of Vancouver’s MLS jersey it reads “Since 1974″. And the Whitecaps news release on the logo unveiling said the following:

The new brand and logo, which will be used throughout the club come November 2010, draws its inspiration from the spectacular geography of Western Canada’s largest city, as well as the club’s long tradition of success. The new brand will see Whitecaps FC continue their long tradition of using white as one of their primary colours, while the club have also incorporated the colour of ‘deep sea’ blue as a reflection of Vancouver’s natural landscape.

At Brand New, a design blog, the verdict on the new logo is positive, comparing it favourably to its immediate predecessor, the current USSF D-II Whitecaps’ logo:

This is a very welcome change, as the old logo looked like a whitewater rafting attraction you would find somewhere in an interstate; it’s really amazing they sold any merchandise with that silly thing. In contrast, the new logo is no nonsense and it screams “don’t mess with me.” It’s actually a surprisingly hard-edged logo in this era of bubbly friendliness, almost leaving without points of comparison. But once you get past that initial reaction to the change, the logo is a little dull and not too sophisticated. It feels as if it needed one more round of refinement to make the typography sit a little more comfortable in those spaces, or make the mountains a little more interesting beyond just repeating the same shape six times.

On a more positive light, it wants to look like an international soccer team crest, and that’s not a bad thing to strive for.

There’s no doubt the current USSF D-II team’s logo was a cartoonish travesty that completely failed as an update to the Whitecaps classic NASL logo. But maybe the actual point of comparison should be that 1979 incarnation, a very good piece of design-work, and it’s somewhat surprising the new MLS logo is such a radical departure from it, especially given the team is trumpeting its connection to that team’s identity and success.

That 1979 logo replaced the original logo for the Whitecaps from their first season in the NASL in 1974, an effort that tied the club much more into country than city:

The 1979 change was a radical one, but one that made sense for the team’s local identity.

“With all logos, they tend to evolve over a period of time,” said Paul Barber, the Whitecaps CEO. But the new Whitecaps logo really stretches the concept of evolution, and does not succeed as a revolutionary change, either. The new logo is a radical re-conceptualisation of the club’s identity that loses the warmth of the 1979 version that was still present even in the USSF D-II club’s poor logo. There may be a formal tie to the whitecap waves that dominated the classic 1979 logo in the new logo with the blues and the bottom half of the logo perhaps evoking waves, but in terms of style, it’s a complete reversal: angular, jagged, cold and sterile are the feelings the 2011 MLS logo evokes in me. It does not evoke anything of the history of the club or its previous success.

To illustrate our point, let’s look at them together side-by-side:

The Whitecapsfan blog makes much the same point about the coldness of the logo and its departure from the club’s past identity:

The City of Vancouver has an odd relationship with sporting tradition.  Perhaps it is because we are living on the West Coast that we demand constant change and newness.  Look at the Vancouver Canucks for instance. They joined the NHL back in 1970 with a great uniform. The colours were great, the logo was great, but it was deemed not good enough. Subsequently there have been so many changes to the look of the Vancouver Canucks it makes your head spin and you wonder which team you are really watching. It gives the Canucks a sense of impermanence and weakness other NHL teams like the Boston Bruins or the Montreal Canadians simply don’t have.

The Vancouver Whitecaps acted accordingly today, largely dispensing with tradition.  There is no wave and no soccer ball to be found in the new logo, just a cold geometric pattern (the logo consists of three diamond shapes: one large and two smaller, with the name Vancouver Whitecaps FC written in the middle). There really is no love or affection in the image. There are no organic forms.  It reminds me of going to the art gallery and seeing a cold geometric piece of  modern art.  It is utterly humorless, and completely lacking in charm. It has the same emotional appeal as the Hamburg FC logo: austere and geometric. It must have been designed by someone with German ancestry…  It makes me feel as though we are not joining Major League Soccer, but the German Bundesliga!

The logo is meant to reflect the North Shore mountains and their reflection in the ocean, but does so in such a cold geometric manner that it fails to capture the organic beauty of our city.   It is too corporate, like an automobile company logo, and does not contain the love of our club.  I far prefer the Seattle Sounders Logo, which more accurately reflects a familiar attraction of Seattle’s skyline.   There is  charm, humour and love there.

This, for point of comparison, is the Hamburg logo mentioned:

Welcome to the world of cold and sterile logos, MLS Vancouver Whitecaps.

It’s interesting to note that they have no formal announced ties to the Vancouver Whitecaps — as had been presumed for some time, with the Whitecaps set to move to MLS in 2011 and having expressed interest in Edmonton. The team name has also not been announced as the Drillers, as had been expected (this was the name of Edmonton’s team in the original NASL), though that could change.

They will have a youth academy, and a management group with considerable experience in professional outdoor soccer (though it’s not entirely inspiring that the ownership group, the Fath brothers, were behind last year’s friendly between Everton and River Plate at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, a venture that reportedly lost over half a million while drawing an announced 15,800).

But since we’re on a crazy team logo kick lately….It’s worth pointing out the new Edmonton team will have a hell of a job besting the logos of either the Drillers or Edmonton’s most recent professional outdoor team, the Edmonton Aviators, who played one year in 2005 in the A-League, before dissolving when it turned out their business plan to attract five figure attendance numbers was a little over ambitious.

First, the Aviators. One hell of a logo, this.

And the classy Drillers of the original NASL (there have been further indoor incarnations since).

I couldn’t find logos from some of the other failed Edmonton professional outdoor teams, the Brickmen, Black Gold or Eagles. But I do know the burden is on FC Edmonton to come up with something better, at the least, than their peers in the NASL the NSC Minnesota Stars managed.

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Photo credit: Ol’ Mugsy on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion Photo Pool.

Watford vs. Vancouver Whitecaps programme, March 1981

Credit as ever to the outstanding Footysphere for the programme cover image.

The spotlight was far brighter on the previous Gold Cup finals held just two years ago in this city. Most countries sent their ‘A’ squads: the U.S. rightly prioritised their own confederation’s contest over the Copa America they would participate in shortly after, probably because a spot in the Confederations Cup was the carrot for the winning team. Holding the semi-finals and final in Chicago at Soldier Field allowed the buzz to envelope the soccer-loving community in the city, and the final itself was a classic: a capacity 60,000 crowd at Soldier Field saw the U.S. defeat Mexico on a beautiful sunny day before a crowd clearly partisan for El Tricolor.

Gold Cup Final 2007, Soldier Field, Chicago

That buzz isn’t quite the same this year in Chicago, even though I’m looking forward to tonight. What’s different?

For a start, it seems awfully soon for the same semi-finals of the same international tournament to played in the same city (though the final will this year be held in New Jersey).  There’s a strong argument to be made that the Gold Cup ought to be held only every four years instead of biennially. This would ensure a great prize — qualification to represent CONCACAF at the Confederations Cup (now held only every four years) — is available every time (the US certainly took advantage of their opportunity in South Africa).

Such a change would of course give the tournament greater scarcity value. And it would also make it easier for MLS to do what it really should do during these important national team tournaments — stop domestic club play (even if only for the weekend of the final) to focus attention on the Gold Cup.

Indeed, in the 1970s and 1980s, the CONCACAF championship was held only every four years — and the prize was even greater than qualification for the Confederations Cup. At stake was CONCACAF’s sole berth in the World Cup finals. No fewer than six different countries won the tournament out of the ten tournaments held between 1963 and 1989 in eight different countries.

Mexico and U.S. fans at the 2007 Gold Cup Final in Chicago

But in 1991 CONCACAF decided their regional tournament needed a rebranding, renaming it the Gold Cup and holding it roughly every two years since, with World Cup qualification no longer the prize. It has been hosted in the US every time (Mexico were co-hosts in 1993 and 2003), presumably because of the facilities available and the crowds that can be attracted across the country with such considerable immigrant populations from so many CONCACAF nations. Tonight’s semi-finals will surely feature more fans of Costa Rica, Mexico and Honduras than the Stars and Stripes.

The expansion of the tournament to twelve teams means it’s probable only Mexico could also even conceivably host the tournament logistically now, and the financial incentive for packed stadiums every two years in the US is likely to ensure the same set-up continues for some time, at least as long as CONCACAF is run by Jack Warner.

Something has probably been lost from the days when Haiti could host the CONCACAF championship in 1973 and surprise the world by winning it and heading to West Germany for the World Cup finals the next year. The hegemony of the US and Mexico has been broken only once in Gold Cup history, with Canada’s victory the lone non US or Mexican win (both countries have won it four times).

The Gold Cup has been a financial success since its inception, but it probably needs a few more upsets and little more scarcity value to ensure the kind of buzz we saw two years ago in Chicago is replicated every time.

For the club, of course, they make money and — increasingly — are used to “raise brand awareness” around the world. Well, whatever. The bigger issue comes when the cash cows start interfering with competitive play, and Real Madrid’s schedule of friendlies this summer demonstrates that perfectly.

It’s hardly shocking news that the world’s biggest clubs are touring the world chasing every last dollar, to the potential detriment of competitive advantage by draining their players energy and taking games away from local supporters to satisfy the global fan’s desire to consume their team in the flesh. Real Madrid are hopping around the world to squeeze every last return they can on their Ronaldo investment, to nobody’s surprise, and it’s a path well-worn by others.

Celtic manager Tony Mowbray recently complained about his club’s pre-season fixture list, which includes a gruelling trip to Australia followed by the “Wembley Cup” shortly before they begin their Champions League campign this month. “Let’s not disguise it — this is a tough trip,” he said. “For physical preparation, I wouldn’t, personally, have taken it on, but I understand why. Manchester United do it every year, going to Asia or America to sell their brand. The bottom line is that Celtic is a global football club that does have a lot of supporters in parts of the world. I don’t sit here and stamp my feet and get upset about it.”

Global branding is of course the imperative for Celtic, Real Madrid and Manchester United in their pre-season scheduling. When David Gill responded to criticism that Manchester United were putting themselves in danger by ignoring Foreign Office advice to play a lucrative friendly in Jakarta just cancelled after the bombing there today, he was clear about their priorities. “We are very disappointed to have to cancel because Indonesia is an important market for us,” he said.

Friendlies have played an important role in the development of football worldwide. The tours of British teams in organised football’s early decades demonstrated the sport to locals just learning the game around the world, leaving lasting legacies in names, colours and styles of play in many unusual places. But now, even countries with established leagues are rolling over to support the globe-trotting of the likes of Real Madrid, shunting aside actual competitive games to roll out the red carpet — or even an entire new grass pitch.

When Real Madrid signed up to visit Toronto FC on August 7th, the Canadian ownership group MLSE announced it was pulling out all the stops: a temporary grass field will be installed to satisfy the Spaniards wishes to avoid playing on FieldTurf and the team rescheduled an MLS match set for August 9th against Red Bull New York, moving it up to June 13th.

Many Toronto fans were livid about the changes and the blatant cash grab at the expense of the regular season competition (not least because the Madrid friendly would not be one of the bonus games in their season ticket package). As Toronto FC blogger Ben Knight put it, the sudden move “not only scrambled summer weekend plans for 16,000 season ticket holders on cruelly short notice, it also left the club with only one MLS home game in each of July, August and September.”

How are supporters ever supposed to take the Major League Soccer regular season seriously when it’s clear the leadership of teams and the league has other priorities?

One could argue that this is Real Madrid, after all, and the league needs the high-profile games and the income to survive (though MLSE aren’t exactly paupers). But it’s not even the decision itself, it’s the lack of compunction about rescheduling the competitive match to accommodate a friendly that stings.

In Ireland, Real Madrid are playing another high-profile friendly this week against Shamrock Rovers. Preparations for the match have led to the postponement of an Irish league fixture, but Shamrock’s chairman Jonathan Roche does at least have the decency to express regret that the friendly is interfering with competitive play:

“We’re very disappointed in hindsight. If we’d known this was going to happen we wouldn’t have agreed to play Real Madrid,” Roche said. “It was mooted last Friday, and since then the FAI has tried its utmost to sort things out, but the council insisted that the game couldn’t go ahead on safety grounds. It’s an alarm bell to us, and presumably the FAI, that something like this could happen.

“This could have an effect on our friendlies going forward. There is no reason why the Sligo game couldn’t go on, but clearly we can’t allow friendly games to be interfering with out league campaign,” Roche concluded.

It’s frightening for the future of MLS that it’s unthinkable MLSE or Don Garber would say a similar thing; in the long-term, having a league everyone takes seriously as a sacrosanct priority is far more important than the occasional cash grab against Real Madrid. MLS should be careful not to get too friendly too often.

This was one of the reasons I awaited the inaugural season of Toronto FC back in April 2007 with trepidation. Having watched a few games at the Air Canada Centre, home of the Toronto Maple Leafs ice hockey franchise, I was disappointed that the best the crowd could come up with was a droning ‘go, Leafs, go’ every ten minutes or so. The ‘silent’ phenomenon at Leafs games is well-known in Toronto and most commentators associate it with economic class. There’s some truth in this: during home games the most quiet area in the ACC can be found directly rink-side in the ‘Gold’ section, where single tickets are priced in the hundreds of dollars. Men in suits consult blackberries while women clad for the night clubs gossip with friends. Goals often go completely unnoticed while the ‘real’ fans supposedly whoop it up in the nose-bleeds.

However, the sombre atmosphere at Leafs games can be attributed to more than socio-economic status alone; it’s also emblematic of the sort of low English protestantism on which Toronto was founded. While England in the late 1950s and early 1960s saw a society liberated from her dark, Victorian roots by a post-war generation dancing to new tunes from the North-East and inspired by the optimism of Harold Wilson’s Labour Party, Toronto was still covering pub windows in black curtains and listening to the Gospel-inspired ‘Four Lads’.

As David Goldblatt points out in The Ball is Round, the liberating Liverpudlian rock and roll of the late Fifties and early Sixties inspired the terrace chanting at the Kop, chanting which spread throughout Great Britain and is now an integral part of the English game. Before then, “the sound of the British football crowd remained a collage of collective roars and one-liners” (p. 450), which could also describe the sound of the crowd at Leaf’s games. Despite huge social change brought about by an increase in immigration in the 1960s which included many liberal-minded Americans, Toronto’s sport culture would remain inherently WASPish and conservative, and therefore without song, for some time.

Enter Toronto FC. Any fears that the silence of the ACC would envelop BMO Field were calmed on April 19 2007, although it’s interesting to note that the first audible chant from the supporters’ section was a John Lennon song. Although it is now without question there is a sophisticated, football-following base in Toronto, there is a sense that Toronto FC’s fans are creating a ‘simulacra’ of support, borrowing songs from the European grounds they grew up watching instead of forming their own spontaneous, organic sound. Most of the songs heard from the supporters’ section are Euro-British rehashes, including some Kop favourites (but mercifully not YNWA) and one or two verses in French borrowed from Le Championat to promote our bilingual heritage. The impromptu chants of the type that give flavour to the Premiership are missing and most of the songs heard this season are exactly the same as the last, and are even officially sanctioned by the Toronto FC website.

There could be a number of reasons for this, including a lack of away supporters to sing to, but my guess is that Toronto FC’s fans, many of whom also support the Maple Leafs, are in the tricky process of figuring out how to support a club with no history or founding mythology (Dichio’s 24th minute chant aside) in a hockey town without an indigenous soccer culture. While the atmosphere at BMO Field is unlike any in Major League Soccer, there is a growing backlash among some city-dwellers who question the authenticity of supporters singing ‘Toronto ’til I die!’ for a two-year old franchise owned by Maple Leafs Sports Entertainment.

What is not known to proponents of ‘authentic’ support is that just as clubs sprang up across England at the turn of the twentieth century often backed by speculating tycoons, fervent working-class supporters would arrive in the tens of thousands as soon the grounds were constructed and provided instant loyalty, no questions asked. The difference in Toronto FC’s case is that supporters are not only warming to a new club, but to an entirely new sporting culture. It will be a slow process, but over time we may begin to hear the home-grown, spontaneous singing that characterizes the best grounds from around the world. And Toronto FC might even help move Toronto away from the self-conscious, navel-gazing Puritanical hangover that has haunted the city since the Victorian 1960s, simply by singing our own songs and singing them loudly.

Photo credit: behindthenet, krazykanadian and Martin Groove on Flickr

Perhaps it was the decision of Feyenoord’s talented Jonathan de Guzman, native of Scarborough, Ontario, to represent the Netherlands instead of Canada that was the final straw. Much more likely, it was the years of bumbling mismanagement by the bumpkins at the Canadian Soccer Association. But whatever the proximate cause, a Canadian soccer revolution is underway.

We first reported on protests by hundreds of Canadian soccer fans against their association last summer at a friendly against Costa Rica, a black shirt-clad grassroots movement for change.

On August 28th Canadian Soccer Association (CSA) president Colin Linford resigned, a decision that brought Canadian supporters back to reality. The CSA is essentially a federation run by volunteers who oversee a $14-million business. When Linford resigned he said a culture of amateurism prevailed and the only way to save the federation was to disband the CSA.

This leads us to the Canada-Costa Rica friendly at the National Soccer Stadium this week. Canadian national team supporter group, the Voyageurs, began to post on their message board about organizing some kind of protest for the match. The goal was to bring attention to the failings of the CSA yet not take anything away from the team on the pitch.

Slowly other groups began to be involved. Toronto FC supporter groups, U-Sector and Red Patch Boys among others, spread word /of a protest. “Black Wednesday” was the name of the action and the goal was to cover the stands in mourning black. The result was hundreds of black T-shirts printed up with the slogan “Support our national teams – Sack the CSA.” The shirts sold for $5, just enough to recoup the cost of production.

The main goal of the protest was to get people talking about reform and in this the supporters can claim Wednesday’s action a success as the protest made news nationwide. Canadian supporters realize the revolution won’t happen overnight but the grassroots passion and desire for change is as strong as ever.

Ben Knight, writing in the The Globe and Mail, elaborated on the CSA’s history of failure this week.

According to statistics sent out by the CSA last week, Canada now has well over 800,000 registered soccer players. Relative to population, that’s a stunningly high number.

The problem – as highlighted by young Canadian Jonathan de Guzman’s headline-making decision last week to play for the Netherlands instead – is there is no reliable, efficient, non-political way to guide the very best of those players to places on Canada’s national soccer teams.

I’ve been on the Canadian soccer beat for eight years. In that time, the CSA has hurt far more than it has helped.

Early in the decade, it was mired in a misguided, impractical plan to launch a new coast-to-coast pro loop, the Canadian United Soccer League. Organizers had significant sponsorship money lined up – but only if they could sign up eight owners and a national television deal. They couldn’t. Turned out most of the energy was funnelled into an “affinity card” scheme, that would essentially direct-market to Canada’s soccer parents, offering modest discounts in exchange for enduring an ongoing advertising blitz.

When the CUSL’s numbers man, Toronto Lynx head honcho Bruno Hartrell, quit because he didn’t like or believe the numbers, he was vilified in the press. He was also right.

In 2001, the CSA hooked up with then-federal sports minister Denis Corderre to launch a bid to host the 2010 men’s World Cup. This, again, was a ridiculous over-reach. McMahon Stadium in Calgary was never going to be Anfield, no matter how much scarce Canadian soccer money was wasted on the presentation.

By mid-decade, however, things were turning up for Canada on the world soccer stage. A hugely successful hosting of the Women’s Under-19 World Cup led directly to FIFA funding of the initial stages of what turned out to be BMO Field in Toronto. The Men’s Under-20 was soon awarded to Canada – and Toronto FC appeared out of nowhere, just to put some extra-scrumptious icing on the cake.

But how much of that was really down to the CSA? Andy Sharpe was president then, and he gets full credit from me for steering away from the CUSL and World Cup bid. But when you look at the chronic bureaucratic paralysis that has engulfed the CSA – really since Canada’s only World Cup appearance in 1986 – it becomes clear it was the power and resources of others – FIFA, CONCACAF, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, Toronto Mayor David Miller – that were primarily responsible for the happy harvest of soccer miracles 2007 became.

Once Sharpe was gone, the CSA collapsed into chaos. Internal bickering and Titanic-like intransigence of its board of directors – which includes representatives (and bickering, conflicting agendas) from all the provinces – has left the CSA with no president, no technical director, no CEO, and on the hook for a big (unspecified) settlement to former executive Fred Nykamp, who was lured away from his old job at Basketball Canada, only to be dumped to the curb without serving a single day in office.

Last week, the CSA sent out a release asking for public feedback on the strategic overhaul it intends to unveil this May. The document included no specific changes, but we’ve heard it’s likely the provincial reps will be amalgamated into five regional board members. It’s a step towards streamlining, but it still ends up being the same people, with a new spin on all the old problems.

An alternative emerged just days ago, as the Canadian Soccer Federation launched themselves on the internets in opposition to the CSA. Their “Way Forward” PDF, found on their new website, is a nice touch: the second page features a litany of quotes from Canadian soccer players, the media and FIFA on the disastrous CSA leadership (Jason Devos, former Canadian captasin: “It’s a shambles. Let’s make no bones about it; it’s a complete and utter shambles”; Bruce Twamley, former Canadian international: “Whatever success we have is despite the CSA…The sport relies on spin doctors whose role is to make the situation sound better than it is.”)

The document, relying largely on a report prepared by Deloitte & Touche for the Canadian Soccer Association three years ago that it had kept private, outlines the failure of leadership despite the grassroots enthusiasm for the sport. Judging from this discussion on the Voyageurs forum involving a founder of the CSF, they have a long-term vision to connect the grassroots with the highest level of the game.

It is my belief that a healthy grassroots, guided by unified standards established by the national association, will give us a better shot at long term success at all levels than the mess we have right now. It is easy to blame “soccer moms” for the reasons why the MNT doesn’t have sufficient funding but that is overly simplistic. The grassroots are at odds with all levels of soccer administration i this country because they feel that they are being treated as nothing more than an ATM machine for the districts, provinces and the CSA.

It’s ambitious and obviously the CSF is at a nascent stage. They will be holding a town hall meeting on February 28 to discuss their plans. It seems something dramatic needs to be done to shake-up Canadian soccer, so let’s help this leads to a healthy debate and a brighter future for the game there.

Photo credit: mdc77 on Flickr

Photo credit: Photo by Martin Groove on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion photo pool.