BuzzAndSting

Honestly? As someone who is pretty in tune with the Ottawa market if it’s not the Fury then there is no CPL in Ottawa for the forseable future. It just doesn’t make sense from a business perspective. My prediciton, the Fury play 2019 in the USL then are either forced into the CPL or they fold. At this point I think they fold, in which case there may be buzz around another possible ownership group who talks about building a modular stadium similar to the one in Halifax but who knows if that actually comes to fruition. There is no viable land in or close to downtown in which you could build something along the lines of other CPL stadia for a managble amount of money. The alternative is that the fury join the CPL in 2020 and act as if they are extremely excited about it.

That would makes sense.

Well how the sausage is made is still a bit of a mystery. We don’t know if there’s baseline requirements to the payments to the city. It seems to be attached to total revenue but who knows what happens if OSEG claims no revenue. I imagine the Fury are a revenue neutral or maybe a net loss for OSEG so I don’t think it would matter in the grand scheme of things if they existed or not. The commercial development around the stadium and the RedBlacks are the key to the deal for OSEG, everything else, Fury, concerts, etc... are gravy. So having the stadium sit idle for the would be Fury dates I don’t think would affect OSEG negatively, it could even benefit them.

Dude... That is not how it works?! The city owns the facility in name only, OSEG has a license to operate it how ever they want. No rent goes to the city, I don’t even know what rent you’re talking about. The RedBlacks aren’t paying the city a fee or rent every time they use the stadium, OSEG operates the whole of Lansdowne, including all commercial aspects 365 days a year for the next 25 years. If the stadium sits empty for the next 25 years it's there’s very little the city can do as long as OSEG pays their agreed upon payments which I believe are a portion of the total projects revenue.

Well it does if they had a motivated group in Halifax who couldn’t come up with all of the capital to start a club and the league wanted a specific geographic footprint.

They way I see it, and this is one of many reasons I’m not buying any Fury tickets next season, is the Fury could have sold tickets without mentioning the USL. Which they haven’t, they been actively promoting the upcoming season in USL which we now know was far from guaranteed especially when you consider Tony Marinaro’s quotes. They could have done their due delligence and approached CONCACAF months ago to get a better idea of where they stood and then planned accordingly. OSEG has now trotted out JdG, AJ Jakubec and Mark Goudie and the company line is “We’re stunned, we had no idea this could have happened” which is proving not to be the case. Goudie said they wouldn’t be playing in the CPL next season or in 2020 so without the exception from CONCACAF they new they may not play at all yet still went ahead and sold tickets. Either they gambled with their future and lost or they’re negligent in poor business practices. In terms of the player contracts, none of these deals are guaranteed, you could sign anyone and cut them tomorrow with no repercussions. Or you work in language that allows for an out if the team isn’t actually competing in USL.

What’s crazy is that Fury fans do not seem to have a problem with the fact their club was selling them a product they weren’t even sure they could deliver.

I’m no lawyer but I believe the first step of any legal challenge from the Fury would be to file for an injunction in a federal court in Miami, where CONCACAF is headquartered, to allow them to continue to play in the USL while they determine if they want to file a lawsuit.

Wow, he basically accuses the CPL of orchestrating this. And his complaint that the CPL has told players and agents that the Fury won’t have sanctioning is rich when you consider the rumours that JdG was doing the exact same thing.

The ridiculous rhetoric coming from Fury fans on FB and Twitter is insane. It seems that regardless of what’s happened and who’s to blame the only concern is the future of the Fury, not Canadian soccer in general. I’m a soccer fan and I live in Ottawa, I was a Fury fan and still hope they exist in some capacity but the negative vitriol being spouted by so many is unfathomable to me.

So you don’t know any of the particulars and are just making assumptions and speculating. The city owns the stadium but OSEG operates it and collects the rent. The scenario you’ve painted would require OSEGs exclusivity of soccer at TD Place to be voided and then a new CPL owner secure an agreement to play in the stadium while it still being operated by OSEG. The city does not have the capacity to run game day ops for another team and I’m sure there would be further complications with whatever agreement is in place with Levy.

Where is this info stated? I’ve never seen the details of when exclusivity is voided.

I've heard this floated by a bunch of soccer fans in Ottawa and I'm genuinely curious, what circumstances would have to occur for OSEG to consider the league viable in your opinion. The CSA gave the Fury sanctioning for 2019 a couple months ago, you believe they then told CONCACAF to act as the bad guy and deny sanctioning now? And because of that you're never going to watch a CPL match because why? The league orchestrated all of this? Or you want to punish the CPL owners? The ones responsible for arguably the greatest footballing initiative this country has ever seen,

Well there’s some real intelligent conversation going there. /s

Has this been posted?