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About Protega

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  1. I was at this event and was a little shocked at a few things around their scouting and contracting processes. Obviously these things could be changed/fixed as they go and I hope they rethink some of these things, because it will have an impact going forward on the quality of players in the league. Anthony also wasn't very forthcoming on a number of points, but this is clearly the league's position (no comment on anything to do with salaries or broadcasting). To be honest, I left there less optimistic than going in.
  2. One thing I had forgotten is that Fury more recently ran a U19 and a U17 team that played in PLSQ. I don't know for sure, but talk was that it was costing them too much money and there was no real benefit in it for them. CPL should keep this in mind when considering operation of academies. The financial benefits can come from either being able to spend less on transfer fees, or from earning revenue from selling players (or solidarity fees received). If CPL teams won't be paying transfer fees anyway (at least not in the foreseeable future) and if there might not be a lot of demand for the purchase of their players, operating academies could end up being a financial burden with little benefit.
  3. It's a very toxic atmosphere in Ottawa as far as the local clubs go. The two biggest clubs have effectively hijacked the district and are trying to cause problems for any program they see as a threat. In an effort to get the clubs on board and help support the Fury, they had to scrap their academy - there was no actual poaching going on, but certain people at the local clubs saw that as taking food from their children's mouths. One club still refuses to help promote the Fury out of spite for when they used to operate teams in the Super Y League. Something like what Edmonton is doing might work better. But there are a couple of really disgusting people involved in the local youth scene.
  4. He also did individual training over the years with another coach in Ottawa.
  5. I believe camp starts today - anyone know who else might be there, other than the 16 players they have signed to date?
  6. They used to give tickets away to kids, but they now charge $5 for those, So part of the decline is from that, but I would expect revenue would probably be a bit higher in any case. I will say that Saturday and Sunday afternoon games are not convenient for many people and they would probably see a nice bump in attendance moving more games to Saturday and Sunday evenings.
  7. Related to league sanctioning, I've come across comments that Forge and HFX are actually owned or controlled by the same group - anyone know if that's true? If so, wouldn't that be a huge issue? I know common ownership of clubs within the same league is not allowed elsewhere (I assume by FIFA because of concerns about arranging results). We saw the same issue in CL with RBL/RBS, and all leagues tend to have limits on the number of players that can be loaned to other teams in the same division, etc. for this reason.
  8. I didn't realize you were sitting in on all the meetings between OSEG, CPL and CSA.
  9. Everyone knows VM's connection to the CPL projects, so I think it's pretty obvious he has CPL and CSA in his ear on this. Otherwise, this decision would have come out long ago. And people need to remember that OSEG would have had a good view into what's going on in CPL - their decision to stay in USL is based on either: 1) they see issues with the economics of the league; and/or 2) there is a significant cost to them if they pull out of USL without proper agreed-to notice. If anyone thinks they want to stay in USL because it's so profitable, you need to give your head a shake, because OSEG is losing money operating the Fury as is. So if they're already losing money and still don't want to switch to CPL at this time, think about what the CPL side must look like. The whole implementation of CPL was rushed and sadly, isn't anywhere near the level I think most of us had hoped for. That's not the worst thing necessarily, and you have to start somewhere, but Fury playing in USL in the meantime can serve Canadian soccer well.
  10. As a STH, I do want Fury to join CPL, but would prefer that it is delayed until we know it will be viable. But after this decision (which I'm sure is being driven by the CSA behind the scenes like the weasels they are), I will never watch a CPL game if it turns out CSA's plan is to get rid of the Fury to try and make room for someone else.
  11. That thing won't be built for at least 10 years, likely longer.
  12. There's no way he or anyone else would be bringing a CPL team here - there's nowhere feasible for a team to play. Plus, they would be looking to split fans with Fury, which already doesn't have stellar attendance.
  13. So TFC won the 2003 age group and Pro Stars (OASL) won the 2005 age group. Both finals were TFC vs. OASL teams, with no OPDL team making it past the group round (despite making up half the field in each age group). Hearing that OS is not happy with the results or performances.
  14. Ottawa was never actually in the mix for getting an MLS team. MLS was playing that angle to get Montreal into the league when Saputo wasn't willing to pay the full expansion fee.
  15. My first thought was that CPL could have made it happen if they wanted to, simply by increasing the salary cap to something more reasonable (logically, Fury's payroll has to be well above the $500k rumoured for CPL, because there's no way they could pay an average of $20k - $25k and attract most of the players they have). There's no reason that every team needs to spend up to the cap. If people need league-wide parity as a condition of their support, well... But the more I think about it, CPL should have put off its start by a year or two. Lots of pretty important pieces missing (they haven't even announced a salary cap yet, for Christ sake!). A tv deal would have gone a long way as well. League sponsorship? There's a lot of **** (important ****) that needs to be in place well before spring. Fury's decision aside, this league is looking like a disaster.
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