Wizards owner determined to get back in CPSL
By JIM KERNAGHAN -- London Free Press
Following a blizzard of charges and counter-charges, one of the more fascinating disputes in Canadian soccer history is scheduled to kick off shortly.
That's the word from Ottawa Wizards owner Omur Sezerman, whose franchise was revoked by the Canadian Professional Soccer League last fall. He says his million-dollar lawsuit against the CPSL and other parties, including London City team president Harry Gauss, will begin next month when papers are served.
Others the multimillionaire owner is going after are the Canadian Soccer Association, Ontario Soccer Association, league president Vince Orsini and team owner Bruno Iarullo.
"I'm not here to destroy the league, I'm here to make it better," Sezerman said yesterday. "(The league) should be an inclusive club, not an exclusive club."
His suit seeks an injunction enabling his team to rejoin the league, plus compensation.
The league voted last fall to drop the Wizards franchise after what it says were repeated requests for $80,000 in players fees, bonds and so on. Sezerman, they feel, was still smarting after league members voted to hold the Canada Cup tournament in London rather than Ottawa.
Moreover, at the outset of the season-long all-comers tournament open to any senior team, Sezerman felt that as defending champion, his team should go directly to the final and not have to play preliminary games against lesser opponents.
Last fall, he sought an injunction preventing the final round of the competition from being held in London. After a 4 1/2 -hour session in Ontario Supreme Court, the judge ruled against the Wizards and gave Sezerman a dressing-down for bringing the dispute into his court when he hadn't exhausted customary avenues of appeal, such as the OSA.
League administrator Stan Adamson said yesterday that nobody named in the suit had been served with papers yet.
Sezerman was asked why Gauss was named.
"Because he called me 'obnoxious' in an article in your paper," he responded.
Told that I was the one who wrote it, his reply was quick: "Then you're going to be called into court as a witness."
Gauss said the league has operated much more smoothly without Sezerman and "we're all happy he's gone."
A lot of words have been used to describe the self-made millionaire -- brilliant, bombastic, passionate, vindictive, mercurial, litigious, overbearing, generous, hospitable are a few.
In four years, he quickly built the class team of the CPSL, installing it in the first-rate stadium he built in Carp.
There, soccer executives are invited to stay at the mansion he built for scientists and trainees visiting his high-tech medical-diagnostic equipment firm.
Sezerman doesn't like losing. In fact, he can't abide ties.
When the Wizards played to a tie against the North York Astros last September, players say they weren't permitted to watch movies on the bus during the ride home and they were hungry.
In a report to the league obtained by The Free Press, Robin Hart said he and teammate Kevin Nelson were fired in front of their teammates when they approached the owner to say the players hadn't eaten since 1 p.m.
"He blew up and started to curse at us," the report reads. "He then proceeded to fire us and say we were cut from the team. He then told Kevin that he had to be out of the house (that the Wizards provided for some of the players) first thing in the morning."
The team stopped at a fast-food restaurant 15 minutes later.
Sezerman, Hart says, called the two over and told them only the captain can speak for the team.
The owner, Hart claims, also added: "I was a nobody and that I cannot talk to him again," reiterating the player was fired.
Hart didn't return calls yesterday. The other players have been signed and remain under contract even though the team is without a league. Whatever happens next is likely to pale compared to next year. There have been two applicants for CPSL franchises in 2005 from the Ottawa area.
