Who is Kevin Blue? Canada Soccer finds NEW General Secretary ahead of crucial CanMNT match

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Hello soccer fans welcome on n one soccer today Edie patrill Oliver pla Garth wheeler Jordan Wilson we have a big story to jump into right off the top of the show and that is Canada Soccer has named their new general secretary and CEO it is Kevin blue he comes on

Over from golf Canada and gentlemen he’s already put out a video on social media about his appointment let’s hear from the man himself hi everyone Kevin blue here just in the hotel in Ottawa uh honored to be uh named the new CEO and General Secretary of Canada Soccer uh as you all

Know there’s a lot of opportunity on the horizon but there’s also several challenges that we will need to work through together uh to that end I uh today can make to you the the following three commitments um the first is that uh I will work diligently to earn your trust

I’m a newcomer to the soccer community in Canada and uh I look forward to meeting you uh learning from you uh hearing your input uh look forward to to to really working hard to to earn your trust going forward uh the the second commitment I can make is that at Canada Soccer we

Will uh look in the mirror and make the reforms necessary to be able to govern and off operate uh our Federation with the exemplary professionalism that is necessary for us to take advantage of upcoming opportunities and to solve some of our challenges that we have going on

Uh and the third thing is that you can count on us uh to to work extremely hard to uh unite all stakeholders uh behind the the common objective of making sure that soccer in our country is is growing and success ful and that means from Grassroots all the way up through the

National teams uh so we’ve got a lot of work to do uh you know some major Milestones are just around the corner and um it’s time to get to work uh look forward to going on this journey with all of you thank you speaking of getting to work his

Official start date will be March 14th gentlemen so that’ll be about a a week before the men have that big game against Trinidad and Tobago March 23rd we’ll dive into that in just a moment but as I mentioned comes on over from golf Canada was the chief sporting

Officer their wheels since 20121 but what more do we know about Kevin blue uh by the way the walkin talk that was Pro I feel like he’s already at it he’s already working he’s already taking ten of soccer in a new better Direction uh this announcement doesn’t come out of

The blue um rum his name first came about a few weeks back I do believe he was part of the final uh group a final group of individuals who were put forward by corn Ferry um the recruitment firm that was working alongside kenned sucer and finding a new G General

Secretary so he was one of the finalists for the position and over the last few weeks um the the two sides have just been going through contract negotiations but very quickly after Allison Walker um stepped away before she really started Uh Kevin blue was right in the mix um

Look he seems an impressive individual ual sporting background fundraising background uh takes a lot of the boxes that youd say yeah makes a whole lot of sense being General Secretary the fundraising element um how it works in the golf world a little bit of a different target audience different uh

Type of customer or person of interest in terms of the fundraising for soccer in this country um than it is from a golf background so that will be a little bit of a challenge and he mentioned it in um the three things that he outlined bringing stakeholders together in this country maybe not

Understanding The Depths by which there’s fragmentation amongst people individuals across this country in Canadian soccer he’s going to need some help with that um so the business background is one that’s good um perhaps an outsider is what’s required he needs to be able to work with the stakeholders

Like he said across this country the provinces they have their own agenda the men’s and women’s national teams they don’t still have a CBA I’m not sure if they’re still speaking or are speaking from the same himy sheet as well um people like Canada a soccer business the domestic leagues the MLS teams

Grassroots across this country the referees it goes on and on and on and there just seems to be a Great Divide My worry is no matter how talented of an individual you may be and um Kevin blue seems to be one of them very talented individual that this job is the most

Difficult one in Canadian sport right now it is going to require much more than one individual to steer the ship in the right direction it’s exceptionally difficult I wish him the best of luck it could be a stroke of Genius him taking this job could be an outright disaster

Based upon the climate that he walks into right away we’ll see um let’s hope that things um continue or move in the right direction at least you know who the leader is and you can kind of take things forward now I do give kada soccer credit they did pivot quickly from

Walker stepping away to to to Bringing Kevin blue in so fingers crossed this all works out so now that we’re all in a very cheery mood uh olly how are you feeling about this appointment brightening my day uh look I I I’m actually optimistic about the appointment itself you know

Wills Is Right about all of the challenges that are there but I I think this looks like a very qualified individual that the kind of profile that I would have kind of drawn up um if you were to to put together an ideal candidate for this position I think you

Needed two primary things one was someone who has experience in the commercial side of of sport um you know we know that the Canada Soccer there’s a need to both fundraise and and increase those revenue streams and and also manage the all of the Partnerships they

Have on the commercial side and he seems to have that I think you know just from doing some reading about him this morning that seemed to be the primary responsibility at Stanford’s uh in the role he was in there and then you also want someone to balance that who has

Sports leadership right this is someone who’s going to lead the the search for a new head coach someone who needs to needs to be familiar um with Mak making sporting decisions and you know structures in in sports organizations and and how to create the right environment there and and obviously

Between the two roles at at golf Canada and and at UC Davis where he was the athletic director there seems to be some good experience there too so I’m encouraged by the appointment seems like he he ticks most most of the uh the key boxes for me I think whoever they went

After um and appointed to this role like the big thing for me is we need someone who is going to have the courage to to be able to make difficult decisions here H and they’ve got to be able to balance that with you know Building Bridges and um rebuilding some of the Partnerships

That have been broken and and the fragmentation that Wheels talked about but I also think there’s going to be a lot of decisions that need to be made here that aren’t going to be popular with everyone this is a role where just cannot please everyone I don’t think you

Will be able to do that and you need to have the courage to be able to make what you think is the right decision and not necessarily the decision that is going to go down well with with certain people uh who may criticize you for it so that

Is really what I’m going to you know judge whoever goes into into this role on I’ll Judge Kevin blue on and I hope he can he can be the person who leads us forward here because there is so much opportunity in front of Canadian soccers as well as the challenges that

Exist and I agree with Will in terms of a lot of what you said most of what you said but specifically I think one man one person trying to do this job I think it’s too much to ask but what I will say someone new coming in someone fresh

Someone who seems eager um that could go and change a group that could maybe Inspire whoever’s already on the board Canada Soccer in general there’s just been a lot of like a sour taste in a lot of people’s mouth sometimes one individual coming in could just be that

Person to maybe give someone a new leas on life and some freshness which I hope again but it’s a tall task there’s a lot happening but um back in Kevin blue I like that he just came in a little freshness and you could see that he’s

Eager so we we just hope for the best the stakeholders in the game have to want to work with him too because a lot of what happens in Canadian soccer people just throwing recklessly you know attacking one another or trying to bring one another down because they hope

That it’s going to be beneficial to their own party we we need to work together here another Dan at this um you know the the CSA will have a chance to nominate new board members and a new president this spring as well so there could be a change of leadership across

The board and based upon the way that things have go have gone maybe that’s required a a at this time Fresh Faces new voices to come in and people that will work with one another instead of just completely uh having individuals or parties you know with their goal is to

Separate and create chaos and create dysfunction that cannot be the way forward anymore so that’s the climate he’s walking into everyone trying to backstab one another good luck well here’s the thing he does have the big gig we know this um but you’re right everyone needs to be able

To start pulling their weight everyone needs to stop with the mudslinging and try to figure out Solutions now uh but here’s the thing he does have a BA in psychology that could come into effect here from Stanford and he was also the captain of their golf team so he has

These leadership Captain qualities on top of everything else that you mentioned and being the athletic director and being able to you know uh Revenue gain revenue fundraising this is all stuff that he has experience in but uh there’s there there’s also going to be a lot of bridge mending so hopefully

That psychology degree will come into effect here um the Canadian man has turned our attention so as mentioned he will start Kevin blue will start on March 14th the men have that really big game against Trinidad and Tobago on March 23rd that is the oneandone game to qualify for Copa America Oh