THE LONGSTANDING CSL CHAMPIONSHIP SET FOR OCTOBER 13

It’s been 93 years since the first CSL championship – then called the National Soccer League (NSL) championship – was played, a game won by Ulster United in 1926.

While name changes have taken place, the Canadian Soccer League (CSL), has had a perpetual existence, a league described by Canadian soccer historian Colin Jose in his book, ON-SIDE, as a Canadian league like no other, having been born out of turmoil in the tumultuous years of the 1920s and having stood the test of time.

This year’s CSL Championship will be played at Centennial Stadium in Etobicoke on Saturday, October 13 at 3 pm, the Canadian Soccer League has announced.

Details were released this week, with the top eight teams in the First Division qualifying to enter the post season playoffs. The quarterfinals will kickoff Friday, September 28 through the weekend September 29, 30.

The semifinals will take place the weekend October 5,6 and 7.

The CSL Second Division championship game will also be played at Centennial Stadium on October 13 and will kickoff at 1 pm immediately prior to the league final at 3.
The top two teams at the end of the Second Division regular season will gain a bye to the semifinals.

The Second Division quarterfinals, will be played September 28, 29, 30, and the semifinals will be played the weekend October 5,6,7.
In the Second Division Championship quarterfinals, team 3 in the final standings will play team 6 and team 4 will play team 5.

In the semifinals, the top team in the Second Division regular season will play the winner of teams 4 vs 5 and the runner-up will play the winner of teams 3 vs 6.

In both the CSL Championship and CSL Second Division Championship, the highest teams in the regular season standings will have home game advantage in all games leading up to the final.
Games tied at end of regulation time will play a 15-minutes each way extra time and if still tied, FIFA penalty kicks will be taken.

Exclusive: FIFA launches internal probe of alleged corruption – sources

Soccer’s world governing body FIFA has launched an internal investigation of alleged corruption, two people familiar with the matter said, in a development that may signal greater cooperation with criminal probes by U.S. and Swiss authorities.

Members of FIFA’s executive committee were briefed on the internal investigation at a closed-door meeting in Zurich last month, said the sources, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, a U.S. law firm, is conducting the investigation, which is running parallel to the probes by authorities in the United States and Switzerland, the sources said. The results of the investigation are expected to be shared with the authorities, they added.

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Harry Kane, Globalization Under Attack, on the Soccer Field

Last week, a 21-year-old soccer player named Harry Kane made a spectacular debut for England’s national team, scoring against Lithuania just 79 seconds after entering the game and then wheeling away with a look of joyous disbelief as a crowd of roughly 80,000 countrymen roared approval.

Mr. Kane’s unexpected emergence this season as the leading scorer for his club team, Tottenham Hotspur, has captivated fans — not least because he was born and raised a few miles from Tottenham’s north London stadium.

It has also made him a beacon of an anti-globalization groundswell that aims to restrict the participation of foreign players in England’s soccer leagues.

“How many other Harry Kanes are there in the academies of English football who cannot get a first-team game?” Greg Dyke, chairman of English soccer’s governing body, the Football Association, wrote in an opinion article published by The Guardian. “We are simply not giving young domestic talent sufficient opportunities at the highest level of English football.”

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Uefa president Michel Platini fears rise of hooliganism

_81860652_aek_athens_apMichel Platini warned of a return to hooliganism’s “dark days” as he was re-elected unopposed for a third term as president of Uefa.

The Frenchman says there is a rising trend of “nationalism and extremism” being observed in stadiums.

He reiterated calls for a European sports police force to avoid events witnessed in the “not-so-distant past”.

“A past where hooligans and all manner of fanatics called the shots in certain European stadiums,” he added.

Platini was a player with Juventus when crowd trouble prior to the 1985 European Cup final against Liverpool at Heysel Stadium led to the deaths of 39 people.

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New York Soccer Team Set for Historic Match in Cuba

It’ll take place on June 2 in Havana

The New York Cosmos will go up against Cuba’s national squad in Havana this summer, according to a new report, marking the first time in decades that a professional U.S. team will play on the island.

News of the soccer match was errantly announced early, according to the New York Times, which reports the game will take place June 2 during a lull in the Cosmos’ schedule. The Cuban national team will use the game to prepare for July’s Concacaf Gold Cup.

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Pele: It’s time for Australia to host the World Cup

“No doubt [Australia can host a World Cup]. I remember when I was in Australia a long time ago people already mentioned about Australia hosting the World Cup,” Pele told Perform. “Now is the time, no doubt. The way to prepare for that is to have good players, good team and have some players play outside of Australia.

“I think no doubt Australia could host the World Cup.”

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English football title defences aren’t easy, as Man City are learning again

The big question, perhaps, was why this type of vigour hadn’t been seen in Manchester City earlier. Last Saturday, the defending champions seemed so energised by Chelsea’s 1-1 slip to Burnley that they immediately tore into Newcastle United, dismissing them 5-0. Afterwards, Vincent Kompany made some proclamations, but they weren’t necessarily all that persuasive, despite what had just happened.

“Our team has been proving our determination in recent years,” the City captain said. “That’s one thing when you look back on this team in the future you will never be able to say we did not have. We’ve always come back.”

Except, they didn’t come back to reclaim their title in 2012-13, and it remains hugely questionable whether they can haul in Chelsea to retain the league this season. Too often, it is as if they have needed external incidents to inspire that determination, that Manuel Pellegrini can’t generate the necessary motivation to defend the trophy from within.

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Late-November/late-December proposed for the 2022 FIFA World Cup

Following a six-month consultation process, FIFA’s Task Force for the International Match Calendar 2018-24 held its third and final meeting today in Doha, identifying end-November/end-December as the most viable period for the 2022 FIFA World Cup™. The proposed event dates have the full support of all six Confederations. The proposal will be discussed at the next meeting of the FIFA Executive Committee, scheduled to take place at the Home of FIFA in Zurich on 19 and 20 March 2015.

The outcome of the discussions is also a proposed reduced competition days schedule with the exact dates to be defined inline with the match schedule and number of venues to be used for the 22nd edition of football’s flagship event. Furthermore, the task force, chaired by Asian Football Confederation (AFC) President and FIFA Executive Committee member Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, was exploring the option of staging the FIFA Confederations Cup 2021 in another AFC country during the traditional June/July window, while another FIFA competition – potentially the FIFA Club World Cup – could be relocated to Qatar to serve as the operational test event for Qatar in November/December 2021.

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FIFA-INTERPOL initiative

Corruption and match manipulation remain the biggest threats to the integrity of football, and the increasing number of match-manipulation cases merely underlines the global nature of the problem. Organised syndicates of criminals are trying to undermine football at all levels of the game, and no region of the world is immune to the threat. Simply put: every country in the world could fall victim to corruption in football. The fight against corruption is a complex matter, and one for which there are no simple, fast solutions. Instead, the focus is on a sustainable, long-term programme and a coordinated approach.

In response to this worldwide, complex problem, the FIFA/INTERPOL initative was launched in May 2011 with a particular emphasis on prevention. The initiative can, however, only be a success if all FIFA member associations actively work to combat corruption and match manipulation. Consequently, we aim to develop and implement a global training, education and prevention programme to target illegal betting and match manipulation.
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Beckham says FIFA needs people passionate about soccer as leaders

David Beckham waded into the FIFA presidential election on Tuesday, singling out former Real Madrid teammate Luis Figo in his bid to unseat Sepp Blatter.

The 39-year-old Beckham, who retired from soccer in 2013, has largely kept his distance from the world of FIFA politics after being part of England’s failed 2018 World Cup bid.

But on Tuesday, he issued a statement to The Associated Press that seemed to embrace Figo’s candidacy for the election in May. The two played together for two seasons at Madrid.

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10,000 WAYS TO BUILD BETTER FOOTBALLERS

by Jonathan Townsend

Is it possible for young players to take 10,000 touches a day to improve their ball mastery? Jon Townsend analyses the Dutch theory that could develop technical ability at all levels.

In the summer of 2001, I was fortunate enough to train in Holland for close to 16 weeks, playing with a local team from Enschede in friendlies and tournaments. I saw how young Dutch players trained, prepared and learned the game.

One morning, after playing a few hours of street football, I rode my bike to FC Twente’s brand new training ground in Hengelo hoping to see the first team train. What I found was the club’s youngsters, aged eight or nine, assembling on a small pitch just outside the main training fences corralled by a team of coaches all holding clicking hand counters.

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Hannover win special new fans in Africa

Although Bayern Munich are undoubtedly Germany’s most recognized football club, it is a more modest team from northern Germany that enjoys popular support amongst South African football fans in the Kwaquga township on the outskirts of Emalahleni, some 130 kilometres east of Johannesburg. Watching the Vutha All Stars play on a dusty township field, it is obvious why that is the case as the 11 youngsters taking on their township opponents are all wearing the red, white and black of Bundesliga club Hannover.

“Yes, we are all Hannover fans now,” Vutha Mahlangu, the 17-year-old founder and coach of the team, explains to FIFA.com. The brave youngster, who suffers from epilepsy and was born with a severe back disability caused by a curved spine, is the reason why his team proudly wears the Hannover kit.

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PRIDE OF THE BADGE

INSIDE SOCCER WAS AT THE LAUNCH OF NYCFC’S BOLD NEW BADGE. THEIR WAS POSITIVE ENERGY ASSOCIATED WITH THE NEW MLS FRANCHISE. IT ALSO RAISED QUESTIONS OF PRIDE AND LOYALTY IN FOOTBALL, THE ROLE OF CLUBS AND COMPETITION IN A PLAYER’S PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT FROM YOUTH TO PROFESSIONAL RANKS.

Last night the New York City Football Club new Club badge was unveiled after a build up that had over 100,000 people vote on the two options that were presented to fans. Considering that the team has yet to touch a ball there has already been a swelling of passion created around this new MLS Club. Considering this was about a badge, individuals become rather animated and opinionated about a subject that is in many ways very subjective. But that is right.

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