In a bid to become more competitive in the MLS, Toronto FC have retained the consulting services of former German national team player and manager Juergen Klinsmann – along with his company SoccerSolutions. The club wants to reorganize its soccer program and have made sure they find one of the best in the business to help them do so.
Tag: Toronto FC
Professional athletes at large are overpaid and overpriced. No athlete is worth $2 million dollars a year, $20 million dollars a year or $200 million dollars a year. With the marketplace having such an influential role in sports nowadays, the possibilities are endless for professional athletes’ contracts.
You can tap into the contract of any athlete in any sport and make a case for the absurdity of the figures involved (i.e. David Beckham signed a contract with the LA Galaxy for $250 million dollars over 5 years).
Ignoring the fact that the cheques these athletes are getting is disturbing, every now and then we come across a case where an athlete is being mis-treated and under-paid relative to the contracts of some of the other players involved.
I have been following the MLS team Toronto FC quite closely this season. Watching this franchise game in and game out has unfortunately developed some frustrations rather than joys. Aside from the fact that they were not strong enough to make the playoffs this year, there was one other thing that really bothered me: Julian De Guzman.
This past weekend while working a promotional event at the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) in downtown Toronto I was able to take part in a very large world cup street party. This street party was part of what has been known as Soccer Day in Canada. Like many cities around the world hosting similar events, this was a fun filled street party. Several streets were closed off to traffic allowing businesses and tents to be set up for the general public. There were a number of sporting companies on site, a large beer tent, a stage for musical performances and several large screen tv’s which showed the Toronto FC game (MLS), the third place between Uruguay and Germany and the finals between Holland and Spain. The entire weekend was a great soccer event that was free of charge and brought together people of all nationalities and backgrounds for one thing: the love of the game.
I recently looked at the Toronto FC player roster to discover that this season has almost an entirely new team. How can this be? Surely there would be some returning players but the entire starting eleven is new. OK so I’ll give these guys a chance and hope to rally behind them but what is going to happen next year? How many more new players will there be?
For Christmas a few years ago I was given the book titled How Soccer Explains The World – an unlikely theory of globalization by Franklin Foer. I remember enjoying reading it very much and recently decided to pick it up again and re-educate myself. The author, Franklin Foer, is a contributing editor at New York magazine and senior editor at The New Republic. His writings have also appeared in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times. He took a year off to travel the world and interview some of the biggest club representatives, firm bosses, players and hooligans in the world. His research details how soccer is affecting and and in many ways creating globalization.