De Vos on Canada's footballing obstacles
With Canada's European-based players assembling for a training camp with new manager Frank Yallop in Manchester this week, captain Jason de Vos will be looking to write a new chapter in his international career.
The Wigan Athletic skipper has been getting back into the swing of things at The JJB Stadium since his recovery from a broken bone in his foot earlier in the season.
His commitment to both club and country has made him a well-respected individual in both circles and like all players, de Vos has big career hopes for the future.
In part two of an exclusive interview with skysports.com last September, the tall centre back gives us his insight into the difficulties his country faces in becoming a competitive footballing nation.
Canada is one of the few industrialised nations globally not to currently have a domestic professional league and despite recent efforts to resurrect a national championship since the fold of the old Canadian Soccer League in the early 1990s, de Vos believes starting up a new league will be difficult.
"I think it would be very difficult to start a league from scratch," said de Vos.
"You only need to look at the financial climate in European football right now to understand that it's very difficult financially.
"Clubs over here are going to the wall all the time and players' salaries are coming down drastically from the levels they were at a couple of years ago.
"Clubs can no longer afford to sustain the sort of wage bills that they had in the past because they're getting the revenues through the doors to justify it.
"The start-up costs for getting a league going in Canada is a major stumbling block.
"If you look to the United States as an example, the MLS has lost an incredible amount of money in the years it has been operating and the US (Soccer) Federation has put in a lot of money into that league to keep it going.
"They're also in a position where they have some very wealthy benefactors in place.
"Without that sort of financial backing, it would be very difficult to start up a league of that calibre.
"The idea is one that has been kicked around by a lot of people over a long period of time about starting up a league again.
"The bottom line is - if you're going to start up a league from scratch, it has to be done as a business.
"No business is going to be successful if it continues to lose money, regardless of what industry it's in and soccer is no different.
"If you start up a league, the question marks are - what kind of gates are you going to get, what sort of revenue are you going to have and what sort of corporate backing are going to have₻and you need to know all that before you can start bringing in players.
"Better players attract better crowds - one feeds off the other."
Despite the obstacles, the 30-year-old thinks a structure can be built with the existing Canadian sides that play in the American Second Division 'A-League'.
"You look at the likes of the Montreal Impact, Vancouver Whitecaps, Toronto Lynx - they're in place and have been operating for a number of years now and they've done a good job," de Vos added.
"There's definitely a market there for that.
"I think if we can expand the number of A-League teams in Canada gradually over the next couple of years, that's probably going to be the best way to go about things.
"It could very well happen that there's a Canadian division of the A-League but one of the difficult things facing any league that starts up in Canada is the demographics of it all.
"The travelling distances alone are frightening. It would be like asking a Third Division team in England to travel to the south of Italy for a game. It's just not possible financially, you can't sustain that. 
"When most of your budget is going towards travelling expenses, you're going to struggle.
"You're not to be able to attract the kind of players you are going to need to bring gates in and get the crowds.
"The hats have to go off to the A-League clubs that are there just now because they're doing a really good job."
Despite his hope for the growth of A-League clubs across Canada, de Vos feels it will be difficult to keep the country's best players at home for their entire careers.
"I think one of the biggest problems you are going to face is the better players are going to go and play in Europe because I don't think it's going to be possible to hold those players back when there's an opportunity to earn far greater salaries in Europe," said de Vos.
"It's something that the MLS have managed to do because they're paying their players, certainly their US internationals very well, so the lure isn't as great to earn a salary and a better standard of living elsewhere.
"In terms of professionalism, it's difficult in Canada because the season is really only six months long.
"You can't expect players to play half a season and be completely professional and train every day when there's two feet of snow on the ground.
"I think the standard of training that you get in Europe as well is much higher.
"You're playing with and against better players, better opposition and doing that will help you improve as a player."
Lack of proper football stadiums in Canada is one problem a proposed new league is bound to encounter but de Vos is supportive of a new stadium plan in Toronto and possibly Vancouver.
"I think it's a great idea. We've never really had a stadium that suits international football in Canada," he said.
"Commonwealth (Stadium) is a fantastic facility in Edmonton but when you've got a tenth of it full, it doesn't create much of an atmosphere.
"The one about playing for Canada that you realise is when you go to other countries, you go into their stadiums and there is a great atmosphere there because whatever the size of the stadium, it's full.
"Jamaica, Panama, El Salvador and Mexico all have full stadiums and we need to have that sort of atmosphere and make Canada a difficult place for those teams to come and play in.
"We seem to go out of our way to make everyone feel at home when they come play us, we certainly don't have that when we go and play in other countries.
"We need to have a place where teams are going to be afraid to come and play us."
One area de Vos believes needs changing in the youth football set-up in Canada is more focus on player development and less on success with children who have grown up with dreams of playing professional ice hockey.
"One of the things that needs to take place is we need to start developing players and not just putting teams together to try and win trophies," he said.
"One of the things I remember from my own time in youth football in Canada is the emphasis was always on winning tournaments and having the best team and it wasn't necessarily to develop better players, which is definitely what the system is like over here (in Europe).
"The key focus here is to make players better footballers, not to go out and beat everybody and all comers.
"That seems to be the case in a lot of areas (in Canada), teams recruit the best players to come and play for them and their only concern is winning the provincial championship, etc.
"It's not about making those players better footballers and developing their abilities.
"I think that needs to change and I think in certain areas, clubs are making steps to do that.
"Clubs are looking to hire head coaches and pay them a salary and their responsibility is the development of the organisation, development of the players and that's definitely a positive step forward, that's something we need to do.
"We need to look to the European system where clubs get kids at a very young age and look to develop them all the way through and make them better players.
"(Former international) Colin Miller is a perfect example. He's doing a great job (at the Abbotsford Soccer Association) and he puts in a lot of hard work there.
"I think that's something a lot of clubs should look to try and do because they could benefit from having someone with that kind of experience in place.
"Not every kid wants to play professional soccer in Canada whereas, you look at every kid in Canada wanting to play in the NHL. Everybody aspires to that.
"You see it on the streets with kids playing street (ice) hockey, pretending to be Wayne Gretzky. In Canada, we just don't have that for soccer.
"You don't have kids saying: 'I want to play for the Whitecaps, I want to play for the Impact, I want to play for the national team'.
"It's unfortunate but there is no national league in place that has the exposure that will allow kids to aim for that sort of thing."
The Wigan and Canada skipper thinks one problem area is the lack of exposure of the Canadian squad back home.
"One of the frustrating things in trying to market the national team is that we haven't played any games in Canada for quite some time," he said.
"People have to understand that it's very difficult to find a time of the year when you can have games in Canada.
"We're over here training full time day in, day out for 10 to 11 months of the year.
"We only get a couple of weeks off in the summer to rest and recover and as athletes, we need to recover from a long, hard season over here.
"From a standpoint of marketing the team, the thought of playing four or five friendlies in the summer in Canada is appealing but it's not appealing from an athlete's standpoint.
"What'll end up happening is two or three months into the season in Europe, you break down with an injury and you'll be out for the rest of the year. It's a Catch 22."
De Vos acknowledged some of the progress that has been made in the Canadian game, especially in women's football circles.
"I think the women's team has helped raise the level of awareness of the game in Canada," de Vos admitted.
"When the Under-19 women made it the final of the world championships, they had an enormous television audience and it certainly was a big, big shot in the arm for the programme and for women's football in Canada."
Log on to skysports.com for part three of our feature interview with Jason de Vos, as the big Canadian gives us his hopes for Wigan's season and his career aspirations for the future.
To look at part one of our de Vos feature from earlier in the season, click here.
