Drip, drip, drip

Thanks to the Canada Soccer cheating mess, the only way forward would be for the team to withdraw completely.  But it won't.

The thief who has stolen the women's soccer chances.

They've fired Bev Priestman and taken away her salary for a year and, but the drip, drip, drip of one sanction, then another, then another will not suffice.  The entire country is wearing this fiasco and we are regarded as cheaters in every sport, thanks to Priestman and her fellow conspirators.  If the team left the games, that would help.  In fact, it's the only option now.  

But, as I said, it won't happen. 

And as for John Herdman, the past coach of both the women's and men's national teams, for him to stand there with his face hanging out claiming he knew nothing about all this is a joke.  Of course he knew.  It apparently has been going on for years and he was there the whole time.  In the interview I saw, he kept his head down and didn't look into the camera once while he issued his "shocked" denials.  As if.  

As Cathal Kelly said in his column today, "There's a bowling alley's worth of other shoes to drop on this one."  Frankly, if I were Herdman, I'd 'fess up now and get it over with.

I'm with Moshe Lander, sports economist and lecturer at Concordia, who wrote an excellent piece in 'The Globe and Mail' yesterday about what a total waste of money all Olympic games are.

"French taxpayers will spend more than $11 billion to host what is little more than a two-week party and receive no net benefit.  Boosters claim there is a multiplier effect by estimating what an individual might spend while in the city and then simply multiply that amount by some arbitrarily chosen, outrageous factor to estimate the total effect on the local economy."

After throwing $1.5 billion into cleaning up the Seine so triathletes can swim in it, it's still too polluted for the swim portion!

"But this fails to capture the economic activity the games destroy.  If locals attend the events, any money they spend there requires them to cut elsewhere.  That hurts the local economy," adds Lander.

Makes perfect sense to me.  The reality for Canada in hosting a portion of the World Cup is even more stark.  "Politicians estimated it would cost $30 to $45 million, but the latest forecast has now ballooned to $$380 million."

That's insane and you can bet it will rise even more.  

"Vancouver thought it could pull off its portion of the event for $230 million in 2023.  A little more than a year later it was hoping to keep it under $580 million and let's not forget we are still two years out," says Lander.  "These costs are sure to continue to rise because the actual work on the stadiums and surrounding infrastructure has not even been completed."

When Montreal hosted the Olympics, politicians claimed it would put Montreal on the map and generate billions.  Fifty years later, the Olympic stadium is an eyesore and stands empty.  To make matters worse, the current provincial government -- thank you Francois Legault -- has just approved a taxpayer-funded $870 million roof repair so it can sit unused for the next 50 years!

Politicians come and go, but Canadians will be saddled with this burden for many, many years.