I'm getting more & more out of touch with sports culture in Canada.
Also the fact that Scott Moir from Olympic Ice Dancing got second to a Khloé Kardashian's BF tells me that twitter is largely a female social media platform.
The list of female athletes, looks about right though, with tennis, golf and ice dancing by far and away the most mentioned on twitter, I can't really think of other females athletes from Canada, maybe football (soccer) or ice hockey star players on Olympic teams round out the top (?).

Never heard of Khloé Kardashian's BF before, but a 5 second google search of him & his exploites from last 24 hours tells me I'm even more not interested in him...or the NBA for that matter.

https://people.com/sports/khloe-kard...e-gesture-nba/

Looking at you two on this one, Acajack and JHikka... what's going on with the Ottawa Fury? A few posts about their future in the USL came up in my Twitter feed but not enough to provide the whole story.

What's going on, are they moving to the CPL? I picked up some bad vibes about this... are fans opposed to it?

All is not clear at the moment, but it's being discussed here:

https://forum.skyscraperpage.com/sho...94#post8408594

It's complicated. Basically, CONCACAF has to approve sanctioning for Canadian teams to play in American leagues (because they're crossing from one member country to another). The MLS teams clear sanctioning every year, as do the Fury, and as do smaller developmental teams.

• CPL wanted Fury to join for 2019. Fury said no, CPL said ok but we're willing to change our roster requirements, Fury still said no. Then they go public saying they're playing in USL in 2019.
• Fury were very off-ish. Wanted to stay in USL and be safer with finances.
• CONCACAF warned CSA over a year ago that they would revoke Fury's ability to play in the USL once CPL started up. In CONCACAF's view there's no reason why Fury should stay in USL whilst CPL is operating. The Canadian MLS teams can operate in an American league because they're still playing at the top level possible, but for the Fury to select the American second division over the Canadian first division (even if the former is a higher quality than the latter) goes against the spirit of competition and national development.
• Reading into it more, Montagliani (high up in CONCACAF) is a big supporter of CPL. There are rumours that Fury, including Julian De Guzman, were very anti-CPL and were going around talking down about it. Some view the CONCACAF sanctioning against Fury as Montagliani favouring CPL, but I don't know how much there is to it.

There was a decent number of Fury fans who wanted the team to join CPL in its inaugural year but for whatever reason their management has been very against it. There's cost-certainty in USL for them, but their opponents in CPL would be a bigger and better draw regardless of quality, I would think. At this point Fury is going up against the Canadian footy scene as a whole which is not entirely wise and they've basically isolated themselves from most Canadians.

footsoldiers over on Reddit had a good breakdown:

tl;dr

CONCACAF tells Fury they can't play USL in 2019 because the CPL now exists.
Fury don't want to play in CPL.
Fury would rather not play at all in 2019 than play in CPL, apparently.

^ Thank you both for the explanation.

I am not that knowledgeable about soccer, so maybe you can help me understand why the Fury's management is so opposed to switching leagues?

I mean, I could understand the opposition if CONCACAF was doing something like trying to force the Canadian MLS teams into the CPL. But the CPL/USL sound like a six of one, half dozen of the other situation. I don't get what the benefit is to Ottawa by remaining in USL. Is there some sort of loss in team value that would result by shifting leagues? Or is it something else?

From my outsider perspective, it looks like the Ottawa Fury is being strangely obstinate. The idea of moving over to CPL seems perfectly reasonable.

Uncertainty. Sports teams are big investments and employ people, moving to a new league without certainty regarding revenue and attendance gives established stable teams the jitters till the league proves itself.

:tup:

This is getting into tinfoil hat territory so you'll have to excuse me if something doesn't make sense.

The way I see it, USL has more cost-certainty than CPL does for the next season or two. Fury have operated in that league for two years, know what the cash flows are, and are prepared for it. CPL is asking its owners to put up losses in the first couple of seasons for long-term development for the sport as a whole. IMO, Fury are looking for loss-mitigation as much as possible for a number of reasons (OSEG, etc.).

One indicator brought up was the salary cap being imposed in CPL. It's currently set at $750K/team. This is higher than most team salaries in the USL but not for Fury - Fury were one of the highest spending teams in the USL last season with a team salary hovering around $1M when a lot of other USL teams were as low as $300K. CPL were willing to bend their roster requirements for a season or two to allow Fury to join but were denied.

The thing is, with CPL becoming an entity and USL shifting around its league structure, Fury can't just sit on the fence and choose whatever is best for them. They are a Canadian team that plays in an American league, and without some extraordinary circumstances like high level of play (MLS) or inability to pay for travel (developmental teams) it's difficult to see why they should have the power to sit on the fence for as long as they see fit.

Fury are simply holding out to see how well the CPL fares before jumping ship. Or, they want to wait until everyone else has sunk money into it before they join.

Not far from the Fury's mind is also the fact that every single national Canadian soccer league has flopped over the past 30 years or so.

^ When you put it that way, the Ottawa Fury's concerns don't sound unreasonable. Clearly their owners have sunk a lot of time and money into growing the team and I can appreciate that moving the team to a totally new venture does entail significant risk.

Has there been any talk of a delayed transition? i.e. maybe waiting for the CPL to get year 1 under its belt and then move over in year 2, once there is a bit more certainty? I know that would be treating Ottawa differently than the charter CPL teams, but in fairness, the charter CPL teams signed on for a risky new venture while the Ottawa Fury is fairly established at this point.

Indeed. On the same side though they don't have as much to sink in as the others do. They already have a roster, and a stadium, and travelling around Canada can't be any more difficult than travelling around the Eastern US, especially considering it's fewer dates. I imagine crowds for games against York or Hamilton would be bigger than crowds against Bethlehem or North Carolina...

If they try to get into a fight with CONCACAF they're going to lose. :no:

If they join CPL, and it flops spectacularly, you'd think CONCACAF would let them move back into the USL anyway.

Slightly, but right now they've rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. There's been talk that Fury folk were not very positive on CPL and were saying not very great things about it for whatever reason. They were pretty adamant that it was USL or bust for them, and they would rather not play at all in 2019 than play in the CPL. If they're going to be that against the idea of the league itself then I understand if CPL want nothing to do with them.

What confuses me is that there are two other CFL ownership groups involved in the CPL (Hamilton & Winnipeg) so to see a third, with a soccer team already operating, so adamantly against it is...odd, I think. You would think there would be some cohesion and groupthink going on. They all have the same goal of maximizing revenues and maximizing dates their facilities are in use.

There's actually been talk from one of Canada's footy journalists about Impact moving to the CPL five-ten years from now. Purely wild speculation at this point but it's out there.

I can see why that might not be a popular idea in Montreal, but I can't see how it wouldn't be the best thing for Canadian soccer. Having a top flight domestic league with the three biggest cities not represented because they're playing in another country's league strikes me as an all too Canadian half-assed approached to things.

Montreal is rumoured to be getting a CPL expansion team in 2020, and Toronto has York and Hamilton on the fringes. It makes sense for the CPL to not directly go after MLS territory in its first seasons.

I think that the CPL is only a last-ditch fallback for the Impact. Saputo is not at all satisfied with his team's numbers and has publicly questioned whether he can continue to bankroll a presence in MLS.

As such it's likely part of wider threat strategy just like the ask for new public money to expand his stadium.

^ It's one thing for NHL owners in Canadian markets to blackmail the city into building a new arena... so much of the civic identity can be tied up in hockey. But how on earth could that strategy ever have a shot at working for soccer in Montreal? This is a city that never really got worked up about losing its longstanding football and baseball teams... it's hard to imagine any tears being shed if Saputo moved the team to CPL or even to another city entirely.

I totally agree. But you can't blame a guy for trying.

It's not about getting public money to help expand/build the stadium; it's about altering the tax assessment on the property that Impact operate on. They're essentially paying a lease agreement plus additional taxes:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montr...puto-1.4861845

Saputo financed the initial $17M build of the stadium and the QC government put $23M into the stadium when it was being expanded from 13K to 20K for the MLS.

That's correct. Had a brain cramp.

Still, there seemed to be little public sympathy for Saputo's plight after he made his sortie.

But, but apparently the market analysis for bringing baseball back to Montreal says it would work. :haha:

It would work until the stadium is 25 years old, at which point it will stop working unless a new subsidized stadium can be built, pronto. (Did that sound too jaded?) ;)

The market analysis for an MLB team in Montreal sounds great until you come to the line that lists how much the stadium will cost. :P