The Interview
Victor Montagliani
Since 2016, FIFA has been revolutionising the way football is run around the world, raising the standards of professionalism both on and off the pitch. Concacaf President Victor Montagliani has been at the heart of many of those changes, both in his role as a continental football chief and as a FIFA Vice-President and the chairman of the FIFA Football Stakeholders Committee.
From lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, he tells us about his career and explains a number of issues in professional football on which he has a unique perspective.
What is your vision for professional football in North, Central America and the Caribbean? How do you develop a single vision for such a diverse membership?
Firstly, I just want to send everyone in our FIFA family, across all member associations, my best wishes during this pandemic. Right now, our priority is the health and welfare of everyone involved in the sport. Our job in football is to use our powerful reach and popularity to get positive health messages to fans, and ensure we work hard to prepare to resume our great sport when governments and public health authorities deem it safe to do so.
When I was elected Concacaf President four years ago, delivering a “football-first” philosophy and uniting the membership were my key priorities. The challenges faced under previous administrations had led to a divided Concacaf of groups and subgroups within our member associations (MAs).
All MAs had their own challenges and opportunities but the thing which would unite them is putting football first – that meant delivering more and better international competitions, an improved club ecosystem, youth competitions that served as a pathway to elite football and a women’s football strategy that encouraged women and girls across our region to play or get involved with the sport.
It sounds simple, but after all the challenges of the past, our MAs just wanted to talk about and develop football again, and I believed that by putting that right at the centre of our strategy, we would succeed in bringing all 41 MAs together as “One Concacaf”.
What have been your key achievements within Concacaf as an organisation since becoming President?
The wider achievement of bringing all MAs together has been huge for our confederation, but if I had to pick one development, it is the launch of the Concacaf Nations League.
To understand just how big an impact our Nations League has had, you have to go back to the many years in the 2000s, and right up to 2016, when so many of our MAs played a single-digit number of games over a four-year men’s international calendar.
In some cases, MAs were playing just a couple of FIFA World Cup qualifiers and then not playing again until the next World Cup qualification campaign came around years later.
We had to address that to increase opportunities to play, to drive competition and to provide a platform for our MAs to build and develop their teams and improve at regional and global level.
With the Concacaf Nations League, we delivered in all those areas. In came 102 group-stage games in the September, October and November windows, with all 41 MAs playing in one competition together for the first time; in came qualification for our Gold Cup through the Nations League group stages and promotion and relegation between editions. The football was great. There were some outstanding performances from the likes of Suriname, who won their group and qualified for their first Gold Cup; Grenada, who also won their group and qualified for a first Gold Cup in ten years; and Bermuda, who beat Panama for the first time in their history and pushed Mexico all the way in a narrow 2-1 loss.
There have been other important achievements: delivering our “Concacaf W” women’s football strategy and enhancing the Concacaf Champions League, but the Nations League has been truly game-changing for football in our confederation.
Please tell us about your transition from football player to leader in the football industry.
I grew up in a football-loving family. We lived in East Vancouver, an immigrant enclave in the city. Football was a big part of everyday life from an early age, whether it was talking about the Milan derby at the dinner table or kicking a ball around with friends in the alleys and the local parks.
I had the privilege of playing at an elite level in Vancouver for a youth club called Grandview Legion and as a teenager for a renowned club in Canada called Columbus FC. Columbus was well known for developing many players into the professional ranks and our national teams. I was able to enjoy a taste of this elite football in Europe, representing my region and even my country, not only in the 11-a-side game but also in futsal. Unfortunately, after my ninth surgery, at the age of 28, it was time to transfer my passion and love for the sport off the pitch.
After football, my professional career took off in the insurance, risk management and corporate sectors in Canada. In 2001, I had an opportunity to get back into the sport formally, becoming Vice-President, and soon after President, of British Columbia Soccer. After that, it was the Canada Soccer Association, where I was voted President in 2012 and worked on the successful bid to host the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup – a highlight of my time in football. I also had the privilege of being heavily involved in the United 2026 bid, from the concept and development stage right through to seeing it come to fruition with my presidential colleagues from US Soccer, the Canada Soccer Association and the Mexican Football Association.
After Canada Soccer, I was voted in as Concacaf President in May 2016 and also became a FIFA Vice-President and later chairman of the FIFA Football Stakeholders Committee.
Despite some big challenges, it has been, and continues to be, an amazing time to be involved with football and to drive the development of the sport in Canada and the Concacaf region, and also get involved globally through my FIFA positions. However, I must confess that the most pleasurable part of my position, which has been highlighted by the lack of face-to-face time during the COVID-19 pandemic, is working with the people involved in Concacaf. That starts with my 41 presidents, my Concacaf Council members and the staff – they make the highs higher, and the lows not as low.
How has the growth of Major League Soccer (MLS) contributed to the development of football in North America, and what’s next?
Major League Soccer has done a tremendous job supporting the development of football in North America. This season – although now obviously postponed due to COVID-19 – is their 25th and they have continued growing and consistently drawing new fans to the sport.
The fact that you now see teams like Atlanta United regularly playing in front of crowds of 50,000 plus, and the Seattle Sounders, who have for many, many years played in front of crowds of 40,000 plus, demonstrates how much appetite there is for the sport in the US. The media coverage of “soccer” in the US is much, much greater now than in previous years and a lot of that is down to MLS and their impressive fan engagement and marketing.
In terms of what comes next, I think MLS, as well as Liga MX, knows that the relevancy of their leagues lies not only in their success, but also in the success of the Concacaf Champions League in its expansion and moving forward. Only with this success will the leagues, their clubs and their brands be relevant globally. It is a priority for Concacaf to keep developing and growing our Champions League and the timing works well with the exciting plans for the FIFA Club World Cup on the horizon.
What do you see as the main successes of the first season of the Canadian Premier League?
Having been heavily involved in its development from the beginning, my expectations for the first season of the Canadian Premier League were high, but they were surpassed. Put simply, to deliver a first season like they did, with the great games and strong crowd numbers, was outstanding. The champions, Forge FC, averaged 8,500 fans at their games and competed with strong Central American opposition in our Concacaf League [the second-tier competition contested between clubs from across Concacaf].
Canada is an ice hockey-obsessed country and also has established fans of basketball, baseball and American football. But the Canadian Premier League has shown that soccer is an important part of the fabric of Canadian culture and that, now given the opportunity, this is a league that Canadians can be proud of as their own. The focus on player development has helped with that, as have the excellent marketing and presentation of the competition by OneSoccer.
Once the pandemic is over and our sport safely returns, the Canadian Premier League has a great future ahead of it. The inclusion of the new team Atlético Ottawa, part of the Atlético group of clubs, has added another exciting talking point as well as an injection of serious football culture and I can’t wait to see the league continue to grow on the field.
How is the Concacaf region preparing to host the FIFA World Cup 2026?
Everyone involved in football in our region is hugely excited by the prospect of the FIFA World Cup coming to Canada, Mexico and the USA. It provides an amazing opportunity to really accelerate the growth of the sport.
In general, the stadiums and facilities in the three nations are world-class and all three countries will welcome fans from across the world with open arms. It’s going to be an incredible festival of football.
At a technical level, FIFA is currently working with bid cities to determine the process for selecting which of them will host matches. That process in itself has generated a lot of media interest and competition between the cities.
As the Vice-Chair to the FIFA President for the FIFA World Cup 2026, I will be looking at ways to harness the power of a World Cup coming to our region to benefit the development of football in all our member associations. We want to make sure that young people across Concacaf are inspired by the World Cup coming to this region and that it serves to encourage them to play, coach, referee or support our game.
How do you see the future of professional football worldwide? What can be improved and what will be the most pressing challenges?
Clearly, the biggest short-term challenge is going to be how professional football can manage the financial and other impacts of the current public health situation.
As someone who has worked in risk management for a significant part of my career, I believe football clubs and leagues, in general, are going to have to take more calculated risks when it comes to finance and how they invest in the transfer market and on player salaries. That’s not a criticism – nobody could foresee this and nearly every industry will have to change – but I do think professional football across the world will have to re-evaluate how it does business.
Thinking more medium- and long-term, I believe the future of professional football is very bright. Of course, the biggest clubs and leagues around the world will continue to be hugely popular but I believe we will see leagues and clubs from other parts of the world, including the Concacaf region, really grow.
With the exciting plans for the expansion of FIFA’s global club football competition, there is a genuine opportunity for top Liga MX or MLS clubs to really compete with top teams from around the world. I am sure if you spoke to the Asian Football Confederation, they might say the same about clubs from the Chinese Super League or the J. League. The prospect of more global competition between clubs from all corners of the world is truly exciting.
As the chairman of the FIFA Football Stakeholders Committee, you are leading the reform of the transfer system. What has been the most significant change so far, and what’s next?
At the FIFA Football Stakeholders Committee, one of our main objectives is to add further transparency to the transfer system and rebalance certain things which we believe have gone too far without appropriate regulation.
The committee includes representation from clubs, leagues, player associations, member associations, confederations and the FIFA executive, so we ensure that we get a wide range of views.
I wouldn’t say there is one significant change, but more a series of changes which the committee and I believe are in the best interests of the development of football.
For example, we believe the player-loan system should be rebalanced to promote youth development and have made recommendations to limit international loans for players aged 22 and older. We also believe that development clubs across the world should be properly compensated if their young players move clubs.
Currently, training compensation is often not paid, which leaves development clubs (often at the lower ends of the professional football pyramid) with the frustration of having to complain to their association or FIFA to try to get important funding which they are due. The committee has recommended that a 1% levy on transfer funds be paid to FIFA which, through the FIFA Clearing House, will then ensure development clubs are paid when they should be.
The next stage of the process is to work on the detail of how these, and other recommendations, will work in practice before a proposal is sent to the FIFA Council for approval.
