Sporting Madness

The Canadian Soccer Association announced today that Peter Montopoli will serve as their new general secretary, a new position created to replace the chief executive officer's job and bring the title in line with other world nations. Montopoli's claim to fame is acting as the event director at last year's U-20 World Cup. The CSA press release plays up his impact there, stating, "As National Event Director for the 52-match tournament, he helped Canada 2007 draw close to 1.2-million spectators, engage 469.5-million cumulative television viewers, and spark $259-million in economic impact." It's good to see the CSA finally filling some of the vacancies , but there's still several curious things about this announcement. First, it came out less than a week after the association appointed Stephen Hart as their new technical director, which seems to indicate that they've had the successful candidates in mind for both slots for the last while. If that is the c...

Interestingly enough, it seems Stephen Hart has been hired as the Canadian Soccer Association's new technical director, according to Sportsnet's Gerry Dobson. Surprisingly though, Dobson talks about this as if the story's already come out, but I couldn't find it reported anywhere else. Even the CSA's website has nothing on this, and still lists Technical Director as "TBD" in their staff directory. I don't dispute Dobson on this: he's one of the most connected people in Canadian soccer, and it sounds like he's already talked with Hart. If he had planned to break the news, I think he might have actually explained more about the hiring, though: at the moment, his post seems like a commentary targeted at those who already know the story. Did the CSA decide to hold off on the announcement to avoid diverting attention from tonight's crucial Canada-U.S. U-23 match for an Olympic berth, and forget to send Dobson the memo? One can only speculate...