Canadian football may have to consider bankruptcy protection if its finances don’t improve, interim secretary-general Jason DeVos said in an article reported by TSN’s Rick Westhead.
“We are fighting a real struggle. It’s not imminent, but we need to explore what bankruptcy entails and how it can affect our organization,” DeVos, who captained the Canadian men’s national team and took the executive position in April, said in the story. “We don’t have enough revenue for programs that need to run, including everything from grassroots coach training and referee development to youth national teams and adult men’s and women’s teams.”
DeVos made the organization’s position clear when investigating bankruptcy.
“(The bankruptcy) has been discussed, but this doesn’t mean it’s a strategy or what we’re seeing,” he told Westhead. “Learning about it has been more discussed from my own point of view. It’s the absolute last option I want to consider or even think about. But if I hadn’t done due diligence on this, I would have been omitted.”
DeVos’ comments come a week after Canadian men’s coach John Hurdman said he needed to be “serious” if he wanted to play in the World Cup.
“We’ve got the best generation of players we’ve ever had, and there’s going to be more coming. … “We have to solve this problem financially,” Hudson said after Canada lost to the United States in the Nations League final… When you play at home, you get a chance to win it. You are given the chance to advance to the quarterfinals and you can win through that path. And we’re not serious. We brought the World Cup to our country and we don’t take it seriously.”
At the heart of the organization’s financial problems are contracts signed with Canadian Football Business, a private company. Under a long – term “representative contract” announced in March 2018, CSB was responsible for sponsorship and broadcasting rights in exchange for paying Canadian football about $3 million a year. CSB uses part of the proceeds to fund the Canadian Premier League, which has eight clubs across the country.
Former Canadian football officials defended the deal during a congressional hearing in May, but critics say the agreement is too rigid, too long and does not allow Canadian football to benefit from the recent success of the men’s and women’s teams.
Canadian football admitted it was considering renegotiating some of the agreement with the CSB, and DeVos appeared to be targeting the process.
“I told CSB that we were in this together,” deVos said in an interview. “I know how important it is to have a men’s and women’s professional league in this country, but it can’t come at the expense of our men’s and women’s national teams. Our youth team needs to nurture Canada’s best players who continue to succeed at international level. This is because the success will improve the game.”
Westhead reports that due to the cash shortage in Canadian football, the men’s team may not play in two of its three international windows in the fall, and the women’s team may be limited to a pair of Olympic qualifiers in September after this summer’s World Cup. 토토사이트
DeVos said the men’s team has already missed the match between South Korea and Saudi Arabia.
SportsNet has contacted the offices of the Canadian Football Business and the Federal Sports Minister to respond to DeVos’ comments and will update this story with their response.