Listen to the voice of the innocent

How real is Project 8?

Oh how beautiful are our Emperor’s new clothes! What a magnificent train there is to the mantle. How graceful the scarf hangs.

Look, I don’t want to be that guy. Like Mulder, I want to believe.

No one would allow that he could not see these much admired clothes because, in doing so, he would have declared himself either a simpleton or unfit for his office.

I truly want to be shown to be the fool here. I will gladly eat my words and stand beside you when the league kicks-off, if I am.

But the Emperor has nothing on at all, said a little child.

The reason that it was a little child, of course, is because only the innocent would dare challenge the collective wisdom of the crowd, or risk running afoul of the Emperor. By refusing to step up and speak truth, however, the crowd let everyone down. The Emperor, most of all. He was, after all, naked in the street.

So what is the lesson of Hans Christian Andersen’s famous tale? It’s that we can’t let pride or fear stop us from speaking truth. Not if we truly love the thing that we think our silence is protecting, especially.

So, I guess I’ll be that guy. The comments are open. Yell at me, if you wish.

This week, Diana Matheson announced a third franchise for her Project 8 league, which she says will kick-off in just two years time. The hilariously named AFC Toronto City (should have gone all in an added a FC to the end too, in my opinion), joins Calgary Foothills and the Whitecaps as the three teams that have committed to play in this league so far.

The news was, predictably, met with excitement on Social Media. Less predictably, the media met the announcement with very few questions. For the most part this was reported as if you could go out today and buy your tickets, in fact.

That’s been the reaction throughout this process. Matheson’s claims are printed without challenge. That’s likely because the core message — that a women’s league is long overdue and that, in fact, it is shameful that we don’t have one yet — is true. Everyone wants this to work.

Literally everyone. To the point that we are collectively willing to handwave away legitimate questions about how it’s going to work. Questions like where are these teams going to play, what kind of facilities will the players have access to and what kind of market research has been been done.

Oh, and how are they going to pay for any of it. I suppose they have suggested that corporate sponsors are stepping up — DoorDash, CIBC, Air Canada and Canadian Tire, so far — but we don’t have details on what kind of money we are talking about with those deals.

People who have direct experience negotiating corporate deals in Canada tell me that If they truly are big enough to cover the league’s operating costs, then Matheson has negotiated some of the best deals in the history of Canadian sport.

Much better deals that the CanPL through CSB has certainly. The WestJet deal in CanPL doesn’t even provide for discounted flights, but maybe Air Canada is throwing millions at this league. It’s possible, I suppose. I’d like to hear Air Canada say that, rather than Matheson hint at it though.

That’s just it. All of our hope must come from trusting that the money is there and that the planning is done. We must believe that Matheson, who has no business experience running a project of this size, can plan and start a league in two years time, when it took the CanPL six years to get to launch. And that she can do this while refusing to work with the people who have direct experience launching a league because, well…I’ve yet to hear a good reason why she refuses to work with anyone involved at the CanPL level, nor any benefit from not doing so.

Ultimately, it’s fine. She’s free to go it alone and, as said above, I want her to succeed. She doesn’t owe me, or any fans, anything when it comes to revealing the details of her plan. However, she is gong to eventually have to ask Canadian players to trust that this thing has the money to get through the growing pains that will be there.

She does owe them those details. As well as municipalities that have stadiums, vendors that will want to be assured of payments, staff that she may want to hire, etc.

Does she have those details? Is there more here than good intentions? It’s hard to find evidence of it, if she does.

Bluntly, Project 8 feels more like an extended appearance on Dragon’s Den then it does a league launch right now.

I hope I’m wrong — I can’t stress this enough — but right now I just don’t see any clothes.

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