CSL issues: Effects on Kingston FC?

With the news this week that the CSA was not sanctioning the CSL for the 2013 season, there has been a big scramble between the CSA, CSL, and their member teams as everything tries to figure out the plans for the upcoming season.

Earlier this year on January 31st, CBC Sports released a report that the CSA had cut ties but the CSA made nothing public about the situation. On February 3, the CSL put out a press release that essentially accused the CBC story of lying. Just over a month later, the CSL confirmed the de-sanctioning in another press release on March 5th.

So... what's the deal? What does this mean to the teams? What does this mean to Kingston FC and its local players?

The CSL has also posted four pieces of correspondence between their chairman, Vincent Ursini, and the CSA's president, Victor Montagliani:

1. CSL letter to CSA - Feb 4, 2013
2. CSL letter to CSA - Feb 11, 2013
3. CSA letter to CSA - Feb 13, 2013
4. CSL response to CSA - Feb 26, 2013

The way that this story has slowly leaked out over the last 40 days (or so) has actually done a good job of portraying everyone in a fairly poor light:

• The CSA for appearing to do everything quietly and behind closed doors with no response to the CBC's story, further stories that came out, and the CSL's initial press release.
• The CSL for coming across with the appearance of the school-yard bully, initially accusing the CBC of lying, then admitting to an even higher amount bet on their league than previously suggested in that CBC story, and finally by making public much of the correspondence they have recently had with the CSA.
• The OSA, especially the chairman, Ron Smale, who was mentioned by Montagaliani in several news stories as working with the CSA and CSL toward having the CSL sanctioned by the OSA, and then  in an interview with Anthony Totera on February 13th feigned ignorance of any meeting with Montagaliani and CSL officials.

As expected, this state of affairs looks really bad all around, and the biggest question is what will happen next.

Neil Davidson of the Canadian Press released a story yesterday with comments from Victor Montagliani of the CSA on the CSL's most recent press release that suggest that the CSA has no interest in making a U-Turn on this situation at all, and is leaving things in the hands of the CSL at the moment.

If the league does press forward as an unsanctioned league, the OSA has some pretty tough regulations on referees and clubs that associate with such unsanctioned competitions. A referee that is found guilty of being involved in an unsanctioned or unaffiliated game will suffer a 30 day suspension on their first offence, a 3-6 month suspension, and a 1-2 year suspension for any further offences.. During this time, their insurance is void, so any referee with any desires for improvement, dreams of making the national or international lists will not be going anywhere near the CSL for fear of being tainted.

For clubs, their sanctions are primarily monetary, with the first being a $500 fine, then a $750 fine, followed by a $1000 fine. There is also the possibility of the added penalty being a suspension of the club/team for a period of time.

There are no hard and fast rules as apply to players, but there has been anecdotal evidence of players receiving sine die bans for participating in such unsanctioned situations.

Despite all of these recent events, Kingston FC has been pushing forward with their season preparations, as they have announced the signings of a number of CIS players on both professional and amateur contracts. Local Queen's student and past Golden Gaels captain Jordan Brooks re-signed for another season and brought along three more students, including two current players of the team, Nathan Klemencic, Joe Zupo and David Tom. They also re-signed their coach Colm Muldoon for two more seasons. Muldoon turned the team around when he took over mid-season last year, instilling a much more professional ethic and attitude to the way things were run.

The biggest news for Kingston FC though is the news that they will be playing at the Queen's West Campus field this year at the corner of Johnson St and Sir John A MacDonald Blvd. This was officially announced on Feb 26, but was a poorly kept secret since early January. Home games will be played on Sunday afternoons at 1pm (first team) and 3:15pm (reserves) and Lorne Abugov, the team's chairman, said that they hoped to play a home game every other weekend during the summer.

Finally, and there will be more on this soon, Kingston FC announced that they are holding tryouts on the West Campus field on March 18th and 20th from 6:30pm to 8pm, and Tindall Field on main campus on March 19th from 7:15pm to 8:45pm.

Waking the Red put together a good article on this incident as well, publishing it yesterday.