Afterword

In mid-2011, when we were first contacted by the CSA and asked to submit a proposal to study the viability of a professional football league in Canada, the men’s national team sat 102nd in the FIFA rankings, the country was eliminated from the CONCACAF Gold Cup in the first round without scoring a single goal from open play, and the Vancouver Whitecaps and Toronto FC, the country’s then two MLS teams, turned out on the same day to play Colorado and Houston respectively and failed to start a single Canadian player. Across Canada’s football community — from CSA President down to supporters — there is broad consensus the country is underachieving in men’s football and that the existing system of leagues and programs is insufficient to develop professional and international players. The view that Canada is under-performing and needs change to tap the potential that undoubtedly exists in the country is thrown into sharper focus by the relative progress being made by other non-traditional football powers like Australia, Japan and South Korea.

It is human nature to want to cast blame in the wake of disappointing results. Canada; however, is not experiencing a temporary downturn in its footballing fortunes. The sobering truth is that the men’s national team has not qualified for the FIFA World Cup tournament since 1986, and it is unfair to blame an almost unyielding 25 years of underperformance on one person or even a few individuals. Nor is it useful to unilaterally blame the country’s MLS clubs for failing to give young domestic players an opportunity to play first team football. There is now a preoccupation in the professional game to win at all costs, which has helped engender the practice of MLS coaches signing older more established players to increase their likelihood of immediate success.

Rather, the current crisis in elite Canadian men’s football has been decades in the making, the result of a collective failure to embrace technical and tactical changes and commercial advancements that have occurred in the game. Lacking a clear sense of purpose, weighed down by an amateur foundation, and suffering from years of benign neglect, the game at the top level in Canada has stagnated. Moreover, there are too many footballing interests covering the same ground or pursuing their own objectives. The system is disparate and the current “grab-bag” approach to player development, as one consultee termed it, militates against the creation of a viable national strategy that will return the maximum football benefit to the whole country. In practical terms, this means that the country’s footballing potential will simply not happen if Canada continues to charge forward with no coherent vision for the future.

To overcome the current farrago of competing football interests and ideas Canada needs a new wisdom; what is important is not to remain fixated on assigning blame for past disappointments but rather for us to pull together, professional and amateur, working with a common purpose to address the weaknesses in the Canadian player development model; to focus on the present and future rather than the past.

A Virtuous Circle

The importance of employing a collaborative approach to player development cannot be emphasized enough. Germany’s recent success in developing youth players, which culminated in the country’s outstanding performance in the 2010 World Cup, is the direct result of the DFB and DFL working in concert to improve the caliber of German youth players. In 2000, after a disappointing showing at the UEFA European Championships, Germany aggressively reorganized its youth development infrastructure, which included a requirement for all academy teams competing in the 16-19 age category to carry a minimum of 12 players eligible to play for the German national team. Although the effort required significant joint investment, the country’s strategy has paid off richly in a relatively short period. In 2006 and 2010, Germany placed third in the World Cup. The average age of the German national team has decreased, and given that 61% of players in Bundesliga Division I and 71% in Division II are German, the country’s prospects for replenishing talent are excellent relative to other European nations. Christian Siiefert, the Bundesliga’s Chief Executive, credits the country’s success in large part to the unity between the DFB and DFL.

Germany’s recent success is the product of a virtuous circle that begins and ends, not with the narrow interest of a particular group, but with the global health of German football. The country’s achievement in international play ignites high levels of interest in the game, helping attract the best young athletes to the sport and drives revenues at all levels of the football pyramid. These increased revenues fund facilities, and development and coaching programs, which improves the technical abilities of young German players coming through the system, better preparing them for the challenges and rigours of professional football. In turn, this next generation of players improves the spectacle of German club football, which leads to increased attendance at Bundesliga fixtures, where supporters come to watch and cheer-on home-grown players with whom they identify and to whom they feel connected. All of which leads to a deeper and wider pool of players for Germany’s national team to select from. The whole process then cycles back to the beginning and repeats, reinforcing itself after each revolution with constantly improving outcomes.

Après Nous le Déluge

By contrast, England’s footballing reality, where everyone seemingly pursues their own interests and efforts to prioritize the development of domestic talent are considered anathema to some, can be seen as more of a cautionary tale. In the time period German football was recalibrating, while the Premier League was rising to become arguably the best domestic club competition in the world, England’s football authorities ignored the lack of young players being developed, assuming it represented a natural nadir in the cycle of the country’s football talent. Since waking to the reality that the drop-off in talent was not an aberration but a harbinger of things to come, successive efforts to fix the problem have been scuttled as a result of discord between the FA, Premier League, and Football League, leaving Sir Trevor Brooking, the FA’s Director of Football, to declare there is a “vacuum of leadership” at the youth level in England. The disorder amongst the trinity of governing bodies in the English game has meant the power to develop youth players has de facto rested entirely in the hands of the Premier League and Football League clubs, but the incentive for the academies of professional clubs, especially those in the Premiership, has been to develop the best players, irrespective of their national origin, with the hopes of increasing the profits and performance of the individual professional teams. This system has resulted in a series of disappointments for the country: English players now account for less than 40% of Premier League players, the country has failed to qualify for seven of the last ten European Under-21 Championships, and England’s senior and youth teams have failed to win any major trophy since the academy system was established.

The difference in approach between Germany and England has resulted in marked differences in the success of both countries’ respective national team programs and underscores the need for authorities at all levels of the football pyramid to recognize their common responsibility and interdependence, and work together. The importance of having homegrown role models in growing a football culture is undeniable. In Canada, a single successful, locally-developed player has the potential to inspire many others and success is passed down generation to generation. The more Canadians who star in MLS and go on to help Canada’s national team succeed on the world stage, the more the country’s best up and coming athletes will awaken to the idea that a career in professional football is something within their reach, similar to how young Canadians currently view the sport of hockey. Arguably, the predominance of outstanding Canadian hockey players in the NHL over the years has both endeared the game to the Canadian people and encouraged young Canadian athletes to believe they too can excel in the sport. By contrast, a country with no football heroes of its own to inspire its next generation of youth is not likely to progress quickly or far in international football.

No short Corners

To be sure, we are acutely aware that a new region-based, development focused league, in and of itself, is not likely to spawn a Canadian Lionel Messi or overnight catapult Canada up the FIFA and CONCACAF rankings. There is not a monocausal explanation for what ails football in Canada, so it is doubtful the game can be transformed by a single action or event. However, a great deal can be accomplished when stakeholders, taking a long-range perspective on matters, align their interests and push in the same direction for incremental, marginal gains.

The new association of region-based, semi-professional, development focused leagues concept we have recommended in this study, while not the national professional division II model some might have hoped for, has the potential to be an important stepping-stone in the elite player pathway along which young Canadians can rise to the top tier of professional football. But equally important, it presents an opportunity for the country’s professional clubs, governing authorities and top footballers and coaches to work together in a spirit of cooperation. Only with unity and support from the whole football community can Canada ever hope to rise in world football. Only thus will our achievements in world football begin to match our ambition.

James Easton

www.rethinkmanagementgroup.com