Canadian Soccer Association president Victor Montagliani conspicuously voted against Blatter’s re-election and is positioning this country’s governing body as an agent of change.Canadian Soccer Association
There is an official kickoff to the 2015 Women's World Cup in Vancouver on Thursday. It might be wise to fill out the FIFA place cards in pencil.
Sepp Blatter, the outgoing head of the scandal-ridden outfit, never planned to be on hand, but his de facto deputy, Jérôme Valcke, did.
Valcke bowed out of the kickoff this week, freshly implicated as he was in a $10-million (U.S.) bribery scheme.
The sport's global governing body, racked by arrests and Interpol "red notices," is running out of top-level dignitaries to send to the game's biggest global showcase of the year.
In any case, centre stage will be occupied by Canadian Soccer Association president Victor Montagliani, who conspicuously voted against Blatter's re-election and is positioning this country's governing body as an agent of change.
He is something of an unlikely reformer given he is a dues-paid member of the sport's establishment.
Many of the behaviours that prevail at FIFA (the secretive old boys' network, the addiction to privilege) exist to a greater or lesser degree in national associations, current and past officials at the CSA say.
The fundamental problem lies in the way bodies such as the CSA are constituted.
The fundamental problem lies in the way bodies such as the CSA are constituted – dependent on grassroots funding, usually from highly factionalized member associations, they also draw money, prestige and authority from FIFA, which redistributes its global sponsorship lucre selectively and dangles major tournaments before those who curry favour.
That's not to say the affable Montagliani, who sits on FIFA's legal affairs committee and was recently chosen for a select group reviewing the commercial activities of CONCACAF, the North American and Caribbean regional wing, doesn't rightly sense an opportunity.
The CSA declined to make Montagliani available for an interview, but this week the organization issued a statement hailing Blatter's decision to step aside and calling for a new standard of ethics and transparency.
Montagliani, whose ambition is widely believed to be a Canadian bid for the 2026 World Cup, said this week he's never witnessed any sub rosa activities from FIFA.
In an interview with The Canadian Press, he said there can be culturally related particularities to doing business globally, but "there's a difference between accepting differences and what's coming out."
Before rising to the top job in Canada's soccer apparatus, Montagliani was a three-term vice-president. Before that, he'd spent most of a decade in prominent roles in the British Columbia Soccer Association.
Montagliani's involvement in soccer dates to childhood. The son of immigrants from Italy's Abruzzo region was a strong player in his youth and played national-level futsal, an indoor version of the game.
At the time he began his run for the presidency of the CSA, he was seen as an establishment candidate. Canada's professional clubs took the unprecedented step of publicly backing rival candidate Rob Newman, a governance expert who they argued would bring a more business-oriented approach. Newman, now the president of Sport BC, was travelling and unavailable for comment.
Montagliani, a married father of two daughters, is regarded in soccer circles as a politically savvy manager and a canny infighter.
It's true the CSA has undertaken significant reforms in recent years, some of which were instituted by Montagliani. Others predate his election in 2012.
The composition of the board has been streamlined; there are independent directors, term limits, an element of gender balance and thorough background checks.
But in the words of one board member, it's not enough.
"Far more transparency is required," Montreal-based sports law expert Amélia Salehabadi-Fouques said in an interview. "The mentality of sporting organizations has to change."
Salehabadi-Fouques has mused about tabling a motion to withdraw from FIFA – Canada did so in 1928 over payments to amateur players – and admits her time on the board has been fraught ("I get on their nerves," she said).
The CSA's detailed financial statements are not public. However, what is known is it receives federal funding through Sport Canada and Own The Podium and its annual budget is in the $25-million range. Just more than half its revenue this year is projected to stem from the World Cup.
The association compensates national squad players in tournament play, but the details are confidential – the bronze-winning women's squad at the 2012 London Olympics resorted to hiring a lawyer to iron out their deal (Montagliani chaired the CSA national teams committee).
The CSA's voting process remains opaque – elections are still largely dependent on FIFA-like bloc voting at the provincial level – and there is no official ethics policy regarding perks or gifts on the association website or contained in its bylaws (although FIFA adopted an ethics framework in 2012 and it hasn't exactly been a roaring success).
In an interview with a British Columbia-based business magazine last year, Montagliani cited Valcke and CONCACAF head Jeffrey Webb among his major career influences.
Webb, initially hailed as a reformer, was among those led away in handcuffs from a swank Zurich hotel last weekend.