| Abstract: |
Canada’s national soccer team program has met with disappointing results in
the qualifying rounds of play in the CONCACAF zone that lead to World Cup
qualification. Canada has not appeared in the World Cup tournament since 1986
and more recent performances place Canada well down in the FIFA world
rankings. Canada has not benefitted from a national soccer league since 1993
and Canadian players have difficulty finding training opportunities abroad.
This paper develops an econometric model to explain a nations FIFA world
points to determine the expected improvement in Canada’s FIFA world points,
and subsequent FIFA world and CONCACAF rankings, by establishing a
hypothetical ten-team Tier II soccer league. The model suggests that only a
modest improvement could be expected since most FIFA member nations already
feature at least one professional or semi-professional league of some sort. |