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Post by Futbal on Dec 16, 2017 18:47:36 GMT
Source involved with SAAC claimed that "some good academies will be joining SAAC as part of a new realignment in 2018 in Ontario soccer". Whatever that may indicate. No indication of any leaving though.
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rdafc
New Member
Posts: 3
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Post by rdafc on Dec 17, 2017 8:28:57 GMT
TFC is an part of an American league. Their focus is winning with the best players available wherever they come from not developing Canadian talent as it should be.
That is neither their mandate or job as it should be.
The OSA/CSA are quite naive if they thought TFC was going to be their development platform in Canada, but that much is not surprising.
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Post by Jonjohnso on Dec 17, 2017 20:00:48 GMT
I don't think that the following will happen based on the CSA club licensing program, you will have four leagues available and club or academy will play in league based on their level of classification. There will be no pro/ rel the only way to move between leagues will be to meet the standards, so most of OPDL and some of SAAC will be in level 1, the rest of OPDL some SAAC and OASL will be in level 2, the rest will make up level 3 and your existing recreation clubs will be level 4 .... . That's how I see it all shaking out. Having a nation wide youth league is just ridiculous in my opinion leave that to the pro level
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Post by luisluis on Dec 20, 2017 4:21:01 GMT
Lots of speculation recently on the twittersphere about the new world order in Ontario youth soccer. And rightfully deserved since the OSA really screwed up with that hastily arranged press release/announcement that they put out. In any other industry, the communications manager that put that announcement out would probably be dismissed for incompetency. My take is that it is just some poor guy/gal who doesn't have much input and is just being told what to do. If OSA really believed that what they put out would be consumed as good news, then its clear they have very little understanding of the youth soccer constituency in Ontario.
Anyhow. Speculation aside, my understanding from talking to folks that would know is that SAAC and OASL are combining. I heard that officially it will be branded something along the lines of OASL operated by SAAC.
Now here is my further take on this announcement after considering it for a few days. SAAC was going to lose teams next year to OASL. Without naming names, I heard that it was a few of the highly competitive teams but not Sigma. SAAC saw the writing on the wall. The league was going to become shit. Maybe die a slow death for a few more years but it would become shit. So instead, now SAAC has a new revenue stream from the OSA to run this league. And they now have the purchasing/regulatory power of the OSA behind them to secure infrastructure, match officials, set standards and all that other jazz that comes with administering a league. The recommendations referred to at the end of the release are probably already baked in. And that recommendation is what has already been spoken to above. OPDL will be folded into the OASL league in 2019 and disappear. You are solving 2 problems with a single stone. The bad rap that has followed OPDL goes away, and you now have consolidation of youth soccer in Ontario. Tiering will be part of the arrangement. I don't really have any insight there, But I suspect that what jonjohnson wrote above is probably close to how it will be tiered. That is, based on standards, you will meet the minimum criteria for one of the tiers that will be defined.
What I think will happen in the next 5 years is that you are going to see a shakeout and consolidation of clubs. As clubs and academies compete to make it into higher tiers, they will merge or otherwise fold into other clubs. You will see the rise of super clubs. I can't see this happening with well established clubs like Vaughan, Woodbridge, Oakville etc. But I can see Erin Mills, Dixie, and some smaller academies get folded into North Mississauga or Sigma say. If the CanPL does come to fruition, in the first few years at least, some of the bigger clubs might have feeder arrangements if there are 2 or 3 teams based in Ontario.
Clubs and academies in the lower tiers may struggle to find their niche and will have to provide much better service to stay competitive. Otherwise, families will flock to higher tier clubs and academies for high performance soccer. The lower tiers will have to compete for rec revenue even with the larger, higher tier clubs who will have much better coaching programs.
I think the real loser in this in the short term are the smaller OPDL clubs. I suspect that they will struggle next year as people realize that the league is going away in 2019 and there is no point in investing in it. People are more comfortable going with what they know than with what they don't and you will see that reaction accordingly. So most likely they will go back to district teams or switch over to strong academies already in the OASL. I doubt this will hurt the Vaughan, Woodbridge or Oakville's of OPDL who are 3 or 4 teams deep at most age groups, but maybe some of the smaller clubs might not be able to absorb the fallout if players/families choose to sit it out.
A lot of change is coming. It will be painful. But hopefully for the good of youth development in Ontario and ultimately Canada. It would help if the CSA and the OSA got their act together and hired a decent communications team to keep the parent constituency informed and my suggestion is that they even include parents in the process. Because at this point, it seems that it is not even acknowledged that the parents fund the whole shebang. Either do parent focus groups at each of the clubs or perhaps some online request for comments. I would not suggest a town hall type meeting because it would quickly get out of hand with frustrated parents.
I suggested on Twitter that if parents want to put pressure on the OSA to clarify their plans, they should delay upcoming payments to clubs and academies until they know where there kids will be playing next year. (This is just reasonable consumer behavior. Why would anyone pay for a product without knowing what they are getting). This is what I am planning for my kids.
Anyhow, thats my 2cents. Feel free to critique away.
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Post by agooner on Dec 20, 2017 5:59:17 GMT
Survival if the fittest was already happening in SAAC. 1v1 Soccer partnered with Prostars because it could not gain critical mass from players in the Burlington/Hamilton/Ancaster areas. On its own, 1v1 had no direct pathway into OPDL or OASL for their U8-U12 players, or League1 for their U14-18+ players. playthe1v1way.com/1v1-soccer-fc-pro-stars-announce-partnership-agreement/
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Post by Rob Henriques on Dec 20, 2017 6:11:12 GMT
Folks, what are your thoughts on the possibility that the so called Tier 1 clubs/ACA potentially being organizations that have full pathways to League 1 Ontario? This makes sense to me and I also believe it strengthens L1O further as a viable, stronger D3 League. And with CPL on the way, likely in 2019, which is also the same year the new youth system is to be put in place, do you think this may create the necessary foundation to potentially think about D2? And connect all of it within the next 5 years?
Am I dreaming?
RobH
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Post by agooner on Dec 20, 2017 13:57:31 GMT
You're not dreaming, and perhaps consolidation and clear alignment between yth, amateur, semi-pro and pro will help, but only (I feel) if clear, measurable, transparent and meaningful standards are there to limit the politicizing of appointments.
Sporting merit and organizational standards should go hand in hand. I call it professionalism, and one complaint I hear alot is Ontario soccer is too bush-league and expensive for what it produces.
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Post by big2267 on Dec 20, 2017 19:22:12 GMT
I like the concept of alignment of L1O and OPDL/CPDP, my main question would be how do they ensure that the girls side is well-represented.
At the moment OPDL teams are required to run a girls program, but if there is a tier 1 with SAAC teams, will they be required to field a girls team? What about L1O teams that don't have a women's side? The good news is that they just announced quite a few new L1O teams which should balance a little bit. Consider the following:
L1O teams with only one gender: Alliance United Futbol Inc. (Men) - Affiliated with Markham OPDL Hamilton United SC (Women) Pro Stars FC (Men) Masters FA Saints (Men) Ottawa South United SC (Men) Sigma FC (Men) Toronto Blizzard (Women) Toronto Skillz (Men) West Ottawa SC (Women) Windsor TFC (Men)
L1O teams with no current ODPL affiliate: Masters FA Saints (currently have an OASL boys program) Oakville Blue Devils (currently have an OASL program) Pro Stars FC (currently have a SAAC boys program) Sigma FC (currently have a SAAC boys program) Sanjaxx Lions (currently have an OASL program) Toronto Blizzard Toronto Skillz (currently have a SAAC program) Windsor TFC
OPDL teams with no L1O affiliate (tier 2?): Athlete Institute Brampton Burlington Cambridge Cumberland Hamilton (boys only) Markham (girls only) North Toronto Oakville Ottawa South United (girls only) Richmond Hill SC Toronto Tecumseh Toronto High Park Waterloo West Ottawa (boys only) Whitecaps London
The biggest tension would therefore be strong OPDL clubs without L1O which have L1O teams in their area with established academies. In particular, North Toronto vs. Masters FA/Sanjaxx/Toronto Skillz, Oakville SC vs. Oakville Blue Devils. Not sure if Windsor TFC has a youth program - perhaps they can affiliate with Tecumseh. Rush - a rather strong academy - would be left out as well.
What is also interesting is that just as many OASL teams have L1O affiliates as SAAC teams, even though SAAC is often assumed to be stronger.
The three main complaints of the current setup are: a) Clear pathway b) No best-on-best c) Pay-to-play excludes
I personally don't think (a) and (b) are real issues, but this would certainly help (a) and maybe convince people that (b) is actually OK. Some would suggest that pro/rel somehow solves some of these, but in my mind it only really solves (b), and doesn't do that well.
My 2 cents.
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Post by protega on Dec 28, 2017 15:08:26 GMT
I think this is generally a positive development, in that serves to allow clubs and academies to compete in the same league (it explains the actions of 8 clubs in Ottawa this Summer, who have used dirty tactics with the backing of Ontario Soccer, to try and get rid of academies in the Ottawa area). I assume that the OPDL requirement to have audited financial statements prepared, which designed to favour "not-for-profit" clubs over academies, because the clubs had to have audited financials anyway, whereas this was an additional (significant) cost to academies. In any case, it is difficult to say whether this will be a better system until we see the actual criteria that will be used. I do wonder whether there will be much difference between this and OPDL (there than opening it up to academies), given that the criteria will be arbitrarily set by the CSA.
One concern I do have is whether CPDP clubs will be allowed to stick their 2nd, 3rd, 4th teams in the same league as a strong academy that might not have quite męt the CSA's criteria. This has always been one of their go-to selling points for poaching players from other clubs ("we think your kid should be playing tier 1, and our 2nd/3rd team just happen to be playing there").
I also think they could stack the criteria in favour of large clubs by requiring that they have teams in both genders (another way Soccer Ontario has sought to exclude academies from the OPDL). Realistically, whether a club/academy has a girls U14 team has no impact whatsoever on my U13 son's development (I do think that having a team at each age group within a gender is important though).
I also hope that they don't include a requirement that clubs operate a house league, which again has been used in the last as a way to favour large clubs.
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Post by luisluis on Dec 29, 2017 19:24:55 GMT
Regardless of whether the rules will favor big clubs, I do think that a round of consolidation is in order as both clubs and acadenies will try to leverage scale and address gaps in their setups. On another note, regarding tiering, I was talking to someone recently about this. One idea that came up is a mid season pro/rel alignment. The idea is that after a handful of games, the results of those games are used to adjust the schedule for the rest of the season so that the remaining games are balanced out and teams can play each other at more evenly matched levels instead of having blowouts that don't help anyone. I think this is generally a positive development, in that serves to allow clubs and academies to compete in the same league (it explains the actions of 8 clubs in Ottawa this Summer, who have used dirty tactics with the backing of Ontario Soccer, to try and get rid of academies in the Ottawa area). I assume that the OPDL requirement to have audited financial statements prepared, which designed to favour "not-for-profit" clubs over academies, because the clubs had to have audited financials anyway, whereas this was an additional (significant) cost to academies. In any case, it is difficult to say whether this will be a better system until we see the actual criteria that will be used. I do wonder whether there will be much difference between this and OPDL (there than opening it up to academies), given that the criteria will be arbitrarily set by the CSA. One concern I do have is whether CPDP clubs will be allowed to stick their 2nd, 3rd, 4th teams in the same league as a strong academy that might not have quite męt the CSA's criteria. This has always been one of their go-to selling points for poaching players from other clubs ("we think your kid should be playing tier 1, and our 2nd/3rd team just happen to be playing there"). I also think they could stack the criteria in favour of large clubs by requiring that they have teams in both genders (another way Soccer Ontario has sought to exclude academies from the OPDL). Realistically, whether a club/academy has a girls U14 team has no impact whatsoever on my U13 son's development (I do think that having a team at each age group within a gender is important though). I also hope that they don't include a requirement that clubs operate a house league, which again has been used in the last as a way to favour large clubs.
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Post by manager87 on Jan 12, 2018 4:05:05 GMT
Has anyone seen some tweets on Tweeter how Mapola academy used some of 05-06 TFC Academy players(boys)for the recently taken place Ontario Indoor Cup.TFC did not allow there players to play for any other club/academy while a product of TFC Academy
And then when someone tweeted about it
TFC came out with a statement -saying that they allowed intact encouraged there 05-06 Academy players to play else where while the 2.5 break that TFC academy has
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Post by protega on Jan 12, 2018 14:04:00 GMT
Has anyone seen some tweets on Tweeter how Mapola academy used some of 05-06 TFC Academy players(boys)for the recently taken place Ontario Indoor Cup.TFC did not allow there players to play for any other club/academy while a product of TFC Academy And then when someone tweeted about it TFC came out with a statement -saying that they allowed intact encouraged there 05-06 Academy players to play else where while the 2.5 break that TFC academy has Doesn't look like they did very well, particularly if they were using TFC players.
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Post by protega on Jan 12, 2018 14:12:41 GMT
Seems that the TFC players played up a year and Mapola's 04s did go through. I would be surprised if OS does anything about it just because TFC is involved (even though it seems to be Mapola's own doing). How would you like to have your kid with Mapola and be told that he can't play in the tournament, because we're brining some other kids in, just for a couple of weeks?
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Post by protega on Jan 18, 2018 18:29:10 GMT
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Post by Run Ragged Parent on Feb 5, 2018 13:39:31 GMT
I don't think that the following will happen based on the CSA club licensing program, you will have four leagues available and club or academy will play in league based on their level of classification. There will be no pro/ rel the only way to move between leagues will be to meet the standards, so most of OPDL and some of SAAC will be in level 1, the rest of OPDL some SAAC and OASL will be in level 2, the rest will make up level 3 and your existing recreation clubs will be level 4 .... . That's how I see it all shaking out. Having a nation wide youth league is just ridiculous in my opinion leave that to the pro level
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