Thursday, September 28, 2006

Don’t Drop that Ottawa football!

Due Diligence is one thing, but canceling your meeting with potential investors because of scheduling conflicts? Well let’s just say, the latest twist in the CFL’s quest for a new franchise in the capital is the kind of thing that can worry a CFL fan.

Shades of past incompetence rush back to ones mind, mis-steps along a rocky road of expansions past. Past rushes to judgment that gave the league the likes of Horn Chen the Glieberman sideshow, Murray the Pez and other colourful but less than long term proponents of the Canadian game.

With three apparently solid financial prospects in place, all that seems to need to be done is to match up the needs of the long abused Ottawa football fans with a competent owner and some local involvement. You would think that if the league had that option on the horizon they would drop all other projects to make sure that they not only get the right folks for Ottawa, but somehow keep the other two prospects interested perhaps in other locales where the Canadian game might have a future (hello Halifax, Bonjour Quebec).

But nope, instead scheduling problems end up leaving the prospective partners cooling their heels waiting for the official invite to the league office and a chance to make their case. Putting further behind schedule the likelihood that the league will return to Ottawa for 2007, a missed opportunity to move the league ahead and set the league up for more forward momentum.

In the CFL, as always, two steps forward always seem to come with that one step back.

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