Beach soccer embarrassing

[Bxl Boy]

Beach soccer embarrassing
Dan Barnes The Edmonton Journal

Monday, November 13, 2006

Canada is ranked 71st in the world of men's soccer, behind such powerhouses as Togo, Burkina-Faso and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

So there shouldn't be any reason to look for other ways to embarrass ourselves in the sport. But the Canadian Soccer Association insists upon heaping on the ridicule by wasting money on ridiculous programs that have no merit, particularly in this snowbound country. I don't know how much they paid to send a men's beach soccer team to Rio de Janeiro for the recent world championships, for instance. But it was too much. A single Canadian dollar would have been a shameful deployment of resources in this case.

Beach soccer? Are you kidding? How is that relevant? How does that advance the sport in this country? Beach soccer can be played in most Canadian cities for about 20 minutes in July. But the CSA spent whatever it took to send a team to play footsy in the sand. The team was eliminated in the quarter-finals. Even if they had won the whole stupid event it wouldn't have been worth the money.

What an incredibly bad decision. No wonder the CSA's board of directors just recently tied the can to longtime chief operating officer Kevan Pipe, who was based in Ottawa. If he's going to preside over programs like beach soccer, while the real men's and women's national teams scream out for funding to play more games against better competition, in order to improve, he doesn't deserve to guide the organization.

Sadly, beach soccer is just one of the gimmick programs funded by the CSA, which is surely one of the most confused and confounding national sports bodies in Canada. They also plan to run a futsal team. I know. What the hell is futsal? Don't ask me. I only know it's not real soccer. Edmonton's Ross Ongaro happens to coach both the beach soccer and futsal teams. No disrespect intended to him, because he cares about the sport, but those teams are a waste of time.

The CSA has to abandon every program and idea that doesn't support its legitimate national teams. There is much work to be done, particularly on the men's side, if Canada is to climb the FIFA rankings and make a long-awaited appearance in the World Cup at some point. Development on that grand a scale, particularly in a winter sport nation, takes gobs of money and sound decision-making. It's time for the CSA to come up with both.

[Daniel]

Quand on sait que CONCACAF et FIFA ont payé pour la majorité des dépenses de cette équipe pour leurs tournois...