Russian LNG behemoth coming to B.C. in 2015

Gazprom is coming to British Columbia. 

Not to buy liquefied natural gas -- Premier Christy Clark’s much-ballyhooed elixir for the future of the debt-laden province -- but instead to sponsor the biggest sport final in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics' men's hockey gold medal match.

On Sept. 14 in the Winter Olympic city of Sochi, as Russian president Vladimir Putin looked-on, the world’s biggest LNG company inked a deal to become the official oil, gas and fuel sponsor of FIFA, soccer’s world governing body. 

The agreement runs 2015 to 2018 and is connected to Russia’s hosting of the 2018 World Cup. 

The 2015 Women’s World Cup, FIFA’s second-biggest tournament, is coming to Canada June 6 to July 5, 2015. The championship final will be played at B.C. Place Stadium in Vancouver. 

That means Gazprom’s logo will be seen on the pitch-level advertising boards and executives of Russia’s largest corporation will have the opportunity to enjoy a level 3 hospitality suite. The 2015 Women’s World Cup will be the biggest yet, with 24 nations represented, and matches in six Canadian cities. 

Gazprom claims 18% of the world's natural gas reserves and to be the producer of 14% of the world’s LNG. Gazprom was once poised to export Russian LNG to the U.S., but the advent of fracking meant the U.S. didn’t need it. The Kremlin-backed company has staked its future on a pipeline to China. Gazprom signed an agreement to supply China National Petroleum Corporation on Sept. 5 at the G20 Summit in St. Petersburg. Witnesses included Putin and Chinese president Xi Jinping. Gazprom is also in talks to export Russian LNG to South Korea and Japan.

Clark will lead another trade junket to China, Japan and South Korea to flog B.C. LNG from Nov. 21-Dec. 3. (Academic research shows trade missions don't actually increase trade, but that's another story for another day.)

What happens to the investment of both private and public money in B.C. to develop an LNG industry if Gazprom meets China’s needs and if the Chinese find ample reserves of their own? What happens if Gazprom also finds buyers in South Korea and Japan? 

The word "shutout" comes to mind.

Liberal big shots skip historic news conference

The March 21 announcement that FIFA chose Vancouver’s B.C. Place Stadium as the site of the 2015 Women’s World Cup final was both historic and underwhelming.

Vancouver's nine games, including the championship final, will make this the biggest international sporting event in the city since the 2010 Winter Olympics climaxed with the men’s Olympic gold medal hockey game at Rogers Arena. 

The July 5, 2015 final will likely have a bigger international TV audience, in more countries, than the biggest hockey game in history. FIFA estimated 62.8 million people tuned-in for Japan's upset of the United States in 2011 at Commerzbank Arena, the Frankfurt, Germany stadium that inspired B.C. Place's retractable roof. 

The 2015 Women’s World Cup final broadcast will also draw 10 times more pairs of eyeballs than the anticipated audience of the 2014 Grey Cup. 

The Grey Cup was announced March 8 with much fanfare in a B.C. Place news conference starring Premier Christy Clark (who didn’t mention Vancouver once during her speech). Nobody from Vancouver city hall was invited, not even Mayor Gregor Robertson. That was the end of a hell week for Clark, who was hammered with the Quick Wins Multicultural Outreach scandal and the Prince George plyscraper procurement scandal. Her handlers wanted a quick win before the weekend.

The March 21 Women’s World Cup news conference was a low-key affair, held at the Hampton Inn hotel across from B.C. Place. National Organizing Committee spokesman Richard Scott said top officials from all three levels of government were invited at the start of the week for the announcements in Vancouver and Edmonton, once it was confirmed that the Canada 2015 schedule would be on the FIFA executive committee agenda's March 21 meeting in Zurich. (It was not on the agenda released March 13.)

Federal Conservatives were unavailable, because of the federal budget in Ottawa. 

Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel hosted Alberta Tourism Minister Richard Starke at city hall in Edmonton, where the City of Champions was told it would host the opening match on June 6, 2015.

Vancouver Coun. Geoff Meggs subbed for Robertson, who was apparently out-of-town. Small Business Minister Naomi Yamamoto attended on behalf of the provincial government. Clark, Sport Minister Bill Bennett, Tourism Minister Pat Bell and Deputy Premier/B.C. Pavilion Corporation Minister Rich Coleman were all unavailable. 

Normally, politicians would rearrange their agendas and flock, like moths to light, to a photo opportunity at a good news announcement about a global event coming to their jurisdiction. Evidently, Canada 2015 is not top of mind for the Liberals, because they may have no future after May 14, 2013. 

Polling suggests the Liberals are en route to defeat and they are focusing on clinging to power in ridings that are in jeopardy of falling to the NDP. Additionally, too many big city reporters still have too many questions about the lingering Liberal scandals, whether it be public employees breaking rules by doing party work on government time, the Prince George plyscraper procurement or a new investigation by the Information and Privacy Commissioner into public employees using personal email accounts to elude the Freedom of Information act. 

While Clark was campaigning in the interior, the Liberals quietly tweaked their website to remove the link to their MLAs and replace it with content all about candidates for the May 14 election. Make no mistake, the Liberals are in full campaign mode. The website now implores Liberal supporters to "push back" against "misinformation and bias" on radio and "misinformation and spin" in newspapers. 

The 2013 Liberals would be foolish to neglect history. Demonization of the media was also a feature of the 1991 Social Credit Party and 2001 NDP. Those drunk-on-power parties went into election campaigns desperate and emerged decimated after voting day. The Socreds fell from 47 to seven seats, the NDP collapsed from 39 to just two. 

Today's BC Liberals have 45. For now.

Morning Interviews, Liberally Fixed

More information is emerging on how Clark got into the MILF mess last year. That infamous interview with Justin "Drex" Wilcomes on 98.9 Jet FM was part of a nine interview blitz on FM morning drive shows over three December mornings, according to entries in her agenda that I obtained via Freedom of Information. 

The last interview was with a Victoria station. The preceding eight were all with small market outlets where the Liberals could suffer defeat in the election. 

Dec. 14: 7:30 a.m.-7:40 a.m. Dawn Tyndall, KISS FM Vernon, 7:50 a.m.-8 a.m. Brian Martin and Vicki Proulx, Sun FM Vernon, 8:30 a.m.-8:35 a.m. Kevin and Sonia, Sun FM Mornings, Kelowna; Dec. 18: 6:35 a.m.-6:45 a.m. Darren McPeak and John Helm, Mountain FM Kootenays, 6:45 a.m.-6:50 a.m. Bob Johnston and Bill Nation, The Eagle, Courtenay, 6:50 a.m.-6:55 a.m. Kyle Wightman, The Wolf FM Prince George; Dec. 19: 6:45 a.m.-6:50 a.m. Uncle Scotty, The River, Campbell River, 6:50 a.m.-6:55 a.m. Drex of Jet FM Comox Valley and 8:40 a.m.-8:50 a.m. Robin and Brian, Kool FM Victoria. 

These interviews were part of a coordinated strategy, perhaps inspired by the Swing Teams playbook revealed by reporter Cassidy Olivier in The Province. 

Bell, Bond, de-BID

PCL Constructors Westcoast was chosen to design and build the Wood Innovation and Design Centre "plyscraper" in Prince George. The announcement came March 22 in Prince George. The company is a major donor to the BC Liberals that expanded the Vancouver Convention Centre and renovated B.C. Place Stadium. The Auditor General investigated the $883.2 million convention centre expansion and is conducting a fact-finding mission on the $514 million B.C. Place project. PCL was named a defendant (along with B.C. Pavilion Corporation) in cable installer Freyssinet's B.C. Supreme Court lawsuit. 

Serious questions remain about the integrity of the procurement for this plyscraper. A representative of the BID Group responded on behalf of CEO Brian Fehr, turning down my request for an interview to learn more about the situation and his quotes that appear on Alex Tsakumis’s blog. 

Fehr claimed Minister Pat Bell reneged on a pledge that his company would be shortlisted for the plyscraper job. On Tsakumis's blog, Fehr is quoted as saying he met with the Premier, who apparently called, texted and emailed him about the project. Clark was quoted by the Vancouver Sun as saying "the issue has been handled by civil servants. It hasn't been handled by politicians at all." The NDP has called for an independent inquiry.

These are very serious allegations that deserve to be confirmed or denied, but my queries to Bell and to the Premier’s press secretary Mike Morton were met with silence. 

Lawyer Jane Shackell was the government-hired fairness monitor on the WIDC tendering, but her terms of reference were too narrow to do anything about Fehr's claims of unfairness. Here is her final report, dated March 18. Elections BC records show Shackell donated $700 to the BC Liberals in 2009.

Shackell was also the fairness monitor on the Evergreen Line Project. The main $889 million contract was awarded to SNC-Lavalin, the Montreal-based engineering giant that is accused of widespread corruption on a number of fronts. 

SNC-Lavalin donated $27,647 to the Liberals from 2005 to 2010. SNC-Lavalin board chairman Gwyn Morgan was on Clark's transition team when she won the Liberal leadership in 2011 and donated $117,510 from 2009 to 2012, including $10,000 to Clark's leadership bid. Director Claude Mongeau is the CEO of CN, which privatized BC Rail amid controversy in 2003 while Clark was deputy premier. Clark is under investigation by the Conflict of Interest office after MLA John van Dongen's fall 2012 complaint. 

According to meeting minutes that I received from the Evergreen Line Project board, Shackell's final fairness report was received by the board on Sept. 21, 2012. That was six months ago. It has still not been published. 

The Partnerships BC and the Ministry of Transportation media offices play an Alphonse and Gaston routine whenever I ask for the Shackell report on SNC-Lavalin. 

I'm not amused.

Is this the Women's World Cup Canada 2015 logo?

The eyes of the women's soccer world will be on Vancouver's B.C. Place Stadium on Dec. 14 where the logo for the FIFA Women's World Cup Canada 2015 will be unveiled during a live TSN.ca webcast at 11 a.m. Pacific/2 p.m. Eastern.

B.C. Place is one of six host venues for the expanded 24-nation tournament and is in the running to host the championship final for the planet's biggest women's sport tournament. (That announcement is expected sometime in the spring of 2013.)

A non-coloured logo with the Canada 2015 word mark, however, is already on public view on the website for the Canadian Intellectual Property Office's Trade-marks Database. 

The website says the trademark was filed Nov. 29 by Smart & Biggar of Ottawa on behalf of FIFA. The logo on the CIPO page features a stylized, 11-point maple leaf with feathers, rays of light, trees, and mountains inside. A female figure is in the foreground, with arms raised in victory, above the Canada 2015 word mark. 

To say the list of goods and services to which the logo may be attached is exhaustive would be an understatement. The last items on the list of wares are "cigarettes; tobacco." 

Hey, wait a second, FIFA… 

The FIFA Women's World Cup 2015 logo? 

UPDATE (Dec. 14): Yes, indeed that is the logo. Here it is in better detail and in living colour.

Facts about the logo, from the organizing committee:

• The inspiration or the design comes from Canada's national motto "A Mari Usque Ad Mare", which means "From coast to coast"
• The unmistakable iconic maple leaf forms the basis of the Official Emblem design and in itself transports a strong sense of national pride and heritage. In a way the maple leaf may be seen to represent the country outline
• Three sections contain elements that are open to interpretation but present Canada as a multicultural nation, showcasing both national and urban environments - the ocean, mountains, cityscapes and flora and fauna
• There are eight elements which comprise the Official Look of a multifaceted Canada - Coast; Sky, Ice & Cityscape; Ambition & Mountains; Modernity & Urbanism; Pride & Honour; Water, Ocean & Inspiration; Celebration & Fans; Passion & Innovation
• At the heart of the maple leaf stands a figure, a victory pose. As the stem and vein of leaf, it symbolizes not only the energy of the Canadian nation in hosting this prestigious competition but also awakens a sense of hope, joy and friendship
• The Official Emblem is designed within the FIFA brand architecture

Women's World Cup is coming to Vancouver

Soccer, on the front lawn of Parliament Hill in Ottawa?

You bet. A girls youth friendly match is scheduled for 2:15 p.m. Eastern Time May 4. before Canadian Soccer Association president Dominic Maestracci and FIFA president Sepp Blatter unveil the list of cities to host matches for the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup.

One of the cities will be Vancouver. But you'll have to wait a bit longer to find out whether it hosts a semi-final, bronze medal match and/or the championship final.

"The schedule will be released in the second half of 2012," said CSA communications manager Michele Dion.

B.C. Place Stadium's only serious competition for the final is Edmonton's Commonwealth Stadium. Olympic Stadium in Montreal is a darkhorse. Toronto will be hosting the 2015 Pan American Games, so BMO Field and Rogers Centre will be off limits. The British Columbia government committed $2 million of taxpayers funds to the CSA to bring matches to Vancouver. We do not know the full cost to taxpayers for the tournament. The federal government has promised at least $15 million.

B.C. Soccer Association executive director Bjorn Osieck will be there, as part of a delegation of seven from the west coast for the weekend's annual general meeting. Maestracci faces a leadership challenge, as Canada's four professional clubs are backing candidate Rob Newman in the May 5 election. The SBC Insurance CEO, formerly from Saskatchewan, has been a CSA vice-president since 2006 and chairs the governance committee.

The CSA will be patting itself on the back all weekend over so-called governance reforms. It's still an organization that has not met the challenge of transparency. If it really wants the public to believe in reform, the best, first step would be to release a financial report. Until then, it'll be up to us in the media to pay $5 to the government under the Access to Information Act to get a copy.

Dion said Blatter will stay for the Saturday AGM and banquet. Will it be his last visit to Canada? Blatter is serving his third and final term as FIFA president after his 2011 re-election. The world's soccer governing body is under fire for allegations of widespread corruption.

Furlong: white toques to Whitecaps

It seems Vancouver Whitecaps chief executive Paul Barber's chair was barely cold when the ownership group began thinking of re-filling it.

The media had been told that president Bob Lenarduzzi and chief operating officer Rachel Lewis would run the Major League Soccer franchise as a duo since the former Tottenham Hotspur executive announced his shock resignation on Dec. 9, 2011. Barber worked his last day on Feb. 29. (Sources told me Barber was frustrated that his decision-making authority fell victim to principal owner Greg Kerfoot's micromanaging.)

On April 12, part-owner Jeff Mallett surprised the gathered media at the Hyatt Regency Hotel by introducing John Furlong, the chief executive of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics organizing committee, as the club's new executive chairman. Lenarduzzi and Lewis will report to Furlong. Furlong, who served VANOC at the pleasure of Premier Gordon Campbell, will report weekly to Kerfoot, the mysterious, media-shy West Vancouver tech tycoon.

Furlong told the media the idea was hatched at a dinner with Kerfoot about six weeks earlier. The job is a full-time gig, without an equity stake in the company, that includes a desk on the same floor in Gastown's Landing where he led the Vancouver 2010 Bid Corporation and its successor, VANOC, after the International Olympic Committee chose Vancouver in 2003 to host the 21st Olympic Winter Games.

Irish-born, 61-year-old Furlong chairs the Own the Podium advisory board, is a director of Whistler Blackcomb Holdings and was recently promoted to chairman of the Rocky Mountaineer Railtours' board (more about that below). The Whitecaps' gig gets precedence for Furlong, who did not receive

any IOC or Canadian Olympic Committee appointment after the 2010 Games.

Furlong, who grew up playing centreback, professes a lifelong love for the beautiful game. He recounted how he thrilled he was to watch England's 1966 World Cup win live on TV. He may owe a small debt of gratitude to the world's most powerful soccer executive for helping Vancouver get the Games.

In the following excerpt from his 2011-published memoir, Patriot Hearts: Inside the Olympics that Changed a Country (Douglas & McIntyre), Furlong revealed details about the 2002 night he spent with FIFA president Sepp Blatter at VANOC founding chairman Jack Poole's ranch. (Many have called for Blatter to resign amid longstanding allegations of bribery and FIFA's reluctance to immediately implement recommendations from well-respected transparency expert Mark Pieth's Independent Governance Committee.)

The bid process could hardly be described as logical. Sometimes we sought out Hail Mary opportunities on the off-chance something might work out. Delegates were scattered all over the world, so face time with them as often hard to arrange. When we had an opportunity, we pounced it immediately. One such occasion occurred that August. Canada was hosting the women's U19 World Cup of soccer. Sepp Blatter, the iconic head of the International Federation of Association Football, or FIFA as it is commonly known, was in the country and, we were told, was going to be passing through Vancouver on his way to Edmonton, where the tournament was being held. Working with our friends at the Canadian Soccer Association, we arranged to squirrel him away for an evening to talk Olympics. Sepp was an IOC member and an influential one at that. We wanted to make an indelible impression on him. We decided this would be a night for Jack Poole and his wife, Darlene, to put on the ritz at their sprawling estate in Mission, a rural community 90 minutes east of Vancouver. The plan was to send a helicopter for Sepp and fly him to Jack's place, while showing off a little of the local geography at the same time.

We met Sepp when he touched down on the estate's landing pad. Yes, Jack had his own landing pad. The Pooles poured on the charm. The steak was brilliant and so was the apple pie. We had a great evening talking to one of the most influential sports kings in the world, who waxed eloquently about sport politics, including those that surrounded the IOC.

Sepp was in his element -- at the centre of attention with no pressure. I asked him at one point what his vision was for the game of soccer. "I will not be satisfied until every child on the planet owns a soccer ball," he said. And he meant it. Sepp was a formidable man, short and stocky and with an imposing face, who seemed to dominate his surroundings the way someone much bigger might. By the end of the night we were friends. As always, we didn't ask for Sepp's vote but we were all smiles when he told us we could count on him.

(Media scrum video courtesy SendtoNews/Whitecaps).

John Furlong named executive chair of Whitecaps FC
John Furlong interview

For the record: Vancouver hosted the North American Soccer League's last single-game Soccer Bowl in 1983 at B.C. Place Stadium between the Tulsa Roughnecks and Toronto Blizzard. The NASL championship was contested one more time in 1984 in a best-of-three format between the Chicago Sting and Toronto. The Sting swept the Blizzard in two games, winning the trophy in Toronto.

Meanwhile, Furlong opted not to comment on the ongoing labour dispute between Rocky Mountaineer and its unionized on-board attendants from Teamsters local 31. This, despite being the chairman of the upscale tourist train company's board.

"You need to talk to Randy (Powell, president) about that, that's how we've chosen to do it," Furlong said. "I think this is an ongoing dispute and it wouldn't be appropriate for me to talk."

Workers were locked out last June and the company intends to continue using replacements. The company also chopped limbs off trees on adjacent public land, but claims it was a mistake.

Exclusive: Transparency 1 Canadian soccer secrecy 0

The FIFA Independent Governance Committee tabled its first report March 30 to FIFA at its headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland. Read a Forbes summary here. The full report, by Mark Pieth (with input from Canadians Alexandra Wrage and James Klotz), is here. FIFA's procedures are diplomatically described as "insufficient."

FIFA's response is best described as "baby steps." Transparency International issued this statement slamming FIFA for not immediately accepting and acting on all the recommendations. We're still no closer to finding out the story behind the ISL bribery scandal, despite well-respected Pieth urging FIFA publish the documents.

FIFA's 2011 financial report shows a $36 million profit based on revenue of $1.07 billion and expenses of $1.034 billion.

Meanwhile, closer to home, CONCACAF has announced that there is only one candidate to become the organization's next president. Jeffrey Webb, a banker from the Cayman Islands, will fill the post left vacant when bribery suspect Jack Warner quit in disgrace last year to avoid a FIFA investigation. The Canadian Soccer Association did not field a candidate and general secretary Peter Montopoli did not respond to my interview request.

Webb appears to be reform-minded, but he will have to take demonstrative action to introduce transparency to overcome his stigma. At a time when the world of soccer is under pressure to root out any hint of corruption, CONCACAF appears close to rubber-stamping the presidency of a banker from a notorious tax haven. The optics aren't good.

Speaking of the CSA, the governing body for the game in the biggest country (by land area) in CONCACAF does not publish its financial information -- even for its members! It publishes an annual report without financial statements. But it does submit audited statements to the Government of Canada annually to qualify for taxpayer funds via Sport Canada.

I have exclusively obtained the CSA's 2010 financial statements, which show an $807,944 profit based on $16.163 million revenue and $15.355 million expenses. The biggest sources of income were membership fees ($6.617 million), sponsorships and donations ($3.479 million) and taxpayer grants ($3.145 million). Read the full report below.

Here's hoping the CSA does the right thing and proactively publishes its 2011 financial statements, instead of forcing a reporter to send a $5 cheque to the government.

CSA 2010 Report Mackin