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CTV News
32 minutes ago
- CTV News
Arrivederci. Toronto FC buys out hefty contracts of Italy's Insigne, Bernardeschi
Toronto FC forward Federico Bernardeschi (10) and New England Revolution forward Leonardo Campana (9) argue during first half MLS soccer action in Toronto, Saturday, May 3, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn TORONTO — Toronto FC is parting ways with Italian designated players Lorenzo Insigne and Federico Bernardeschi, ending an expensive and unsuccessful partnership. The struggling Major League Soccer club said their contracts had been mutually terminated, with TFC using its two permitted buyouts of their guaranteed deals. 'After several meaningful discussions, we are happy to have found a solution that is agreeable to all parties involved,' Toronto GM Jason Hernandez said in a brief statement Tuesday. The two Italian designated players arrived to much fanfare — with paycheques to match — midway through the 2022 season. But they could not return the club to its former glory. Insigne, 34, was making US$15.4 million this season, second only to Lionel Messi's US$20.5 million. Bernardeschi, 31, was earning US$6.295 million this season, sixth-best in MLS. Insigne's contract ran through June 2026 with an option for the remainder of the year, while Bernardeschi's deal covered 2026 with option years through 2028. It was not money well spent. Toronto (4-10-5) currently sits 13th in the 15-team Eastern Conference, four places and 11 points below the playoff line, and 26th overall in the 30-team league. It has not made the playoffs since 2020, when it stumbled at the first hurdle. Their departure means Toronto is without a designated player, with two such spots available. Under MLS roster rules, a designated player aged at least 24 only carries a salary budget charge of US$743,750, no matter how much they are paid. 'The designated player strategy is a critical component to Toronto FC's success in Major League Soccer and the club will continue to prioritize TFC's short-, medium- and long-term strategy in the weeks ahead,' said MLSE president and CEO Keith Pelley. Insigne scored 19 goals and added 18 assists in 76 games for Toronto across all competitions. That includes one goal and three assists in 12 appearances this season. Bernardeschi scored 26 goals and added 22 assists in 99 appearances across all competitions. An all-star in 2024, he has four goals and four assists through 15 matches this season. Bernardeschi offered a parting message via social media. 'Every single day on the pitch, I gave everything I had. All my passion. All my drive. All of myself. I never held back,' he wrote. 'I gave everything for this shirt, for this city, for its fans.' 'Now a new journey begins for me,' he added. 'A new chapter, a new challenge. But the bond with this city, with its people, will forever live in my heart. Toronto FC, MLS: thank you for this extraordinary adventure. This is not goodbye. It's see you soon.' Bernardeschi has been linked to a move to Italy's Bologna. Insigne sat out the last two TFC games. He did not make it off the bench in a 1-1 draw with the New York Red Bulls and did not dress for Saturday's 3-0 win over Portland. At the time, Toronto coach Robin Fraser said the club wanted to give other players a chance. Toronto sat Insigne for the first four games of this season after failed attempts to move him to clubs in Italy, Spain, Turkey and Brazil. Insigne kept training with the first team while out of favour. 'It wasn't a happy time for me,' he told The Canadian Press in May. 'But I'm not going to keep thinking about it.' 'I've always been happy here, and as long as my contract lasts, I'm going to do the best I can to make us win,' he added. The club eventually returned him to action, but with one goal and three assists in 12 league outings, he did not make much of an impact. Bernardeschi has not played since May 24 when he picked up a fifth yellow card that earned him a one-game suspension. He missed the last three games with what Fraser described as a 'lingering' injury. At his best, the flamboyant Bernardeschi was a sight to behold, marauding down the wing and heading towards goal, looking to unleash his dangerous left boot. But with 26 yellow and four red cards in 88 league appearances, he was also volatile and somewhat unreliable. Insigne showed only flashes of past brilliance that earned him the nickname 'Il Magnifico.' Injuries and family health issues did not help. Unlike Bernardeschi, who was able to converse in English, Insigne's limited language skills meant his side of the story was rarely heard. In May, however, he said he was going to finish out his contract. 'With the money I earn, I could just sit down, I could have said, 'Who cares? I make a lot of money. I don't have to do anything,'' Insigne said in an interview with The Canadian Press. 'But that's not who I am. I'm going to always, every day, come and work hard. And as long as my contract's here, that is my goal at the end — I'm here to work hard and respect everybody.' Hopes were high when the two made their debut in July 2022, when Bernardeschi scored one goal and set up another and Insigne collected a stylish assist in a 4-0 romp over expansion Charlotte FC. The Italians' debut drew an announced sellout of 29,067, well above the average of 23,676 over the previous 11 home matches that season. Compare that to the 14,019 that Toronto drew this season for a 1-0 home loss to FC Cincinnati on May 14. The two Italians reportedly bumped heads with former coach Bob Bradley. John Herdman, who succeeded Bradley. converted Bernardeschi to wingback with Fraser returning him to his more accustomed winger position. Bernardeschi arrived with a Grade-A resume. 'We are thrilled to add Federico to our team,' said Bill Manning, TFC's president at the time. 'As a player and a person, we believe he's exactly what we need right now, both on the field and in the locker room. Federico has proven himself to be a champion and a leader at Juventus and for the Italian national team and brings a pedigree to Toronto that's second to none.' Manning, fired by Pelley in July as president of TFC and the Toronto Argonauts, famously said he settled on insigne after seeing the local interest in Italy's run to the European championship. 'I actually went to the Transfermarkt website and I looked up the Italian national team on what players were coming out of contract,' Manning told reporters. 'And Lorenzo was one of the few players that was coming out of contract. I started writing down players that I thought were world-class, that I thought would have commercial value in this market.' Insigne arrived from Napoli, where he captained the side. He made a combined 416 appearances for the Serie A club, scoring 114 goals with 95 assists across all competitions. He scored 10 goals in 53 appearances for Italy. But he never seemed to find a fit with Toronto. Bernardeschi arrived from Juventus, where he had spent five seasons after joining from Fiorentina. He scored six goals in 38 appearances for the Italian national team, including the winning penalty in the shootout to seal Italy's win over England in the 2020 UEFA European Championship final (played in 2021). --- This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 1, 2025 Neil Davidson, The Canadian Press
CTV News
40 minutes ago
- CTV News
‘We turtled': Former foreign affairs minister on Canada rescinding digital services tax
After the federal government rescinded a digital services tax targeting tech companies in the U.S. on Monday, the former minister of foreign affairs says he's disappointed with how the government dealt with negotiations. Peter MacKay says the tax could have brought in serious revenue to a government that's made large spending promises. 'They were significant—they were $2 billion that were essentially to be collected as back tax and then going forward $7 billion, so this is a government that has made massive spending promises on a whole range of things, including defence and promises to the provinces. It's looking increasingly like a challenge for them in terms of keeping those commitments,' said MacKay in an interview with CTV's Todd Battis on Monday. 'Backing off on this particular initiative is not elbows up—it's the president took the gloves off and we turtled.' MacKay says the back-and-forth nature of the trade war between Canada and the U.S. is leading to decreased public interest despite the massive effects on the Canadian economy. 'You know it's a new day, new threat, new tariff, but these have grave implications for the Canadian economy, and short of getting into the natural resource industry in a big way, and that means building pipelines and facilitating the export of LNG, the same I would say for critical minerals, we are in for a world of hurt in the Canadian economy come the fall.' Despite the Carney-led Liberals trying to distance themselves from the government led by Justin Trudeau, MacKay says much of the spending is looking the same. 'A lot of this has been framed as 'that was the old government and we're a new government.' Well, putting a Cadillac hood ornament on a Chev doesn't make it a Cadillac,' he said. 'This is the same government—these were the same commitments with respect to tax revenues. In fact, the spending promises are even larger, and the deficit, therefore, will be even bigger, and that, I think, should garner more attention from the public.' MacKay says he's disappointed with the discussions as he feels Canada got no clear return from the deal. 'These aren't my words. It was 'leverage.' This is coming from some of the trade representatives in the White House today—they were gloating about the fact Canada had capitulated, so I don't know what we're getting in return for backing off this particular issue,' he said. 'Of real concern should be those in the dairy industry, the supply management industry. What's next? We still have tariffs on aluminum, on steel. We're not in the best place in terms of being able to actually diversify our trade relationships, which has been talked about since before the election, to be quite frank.'
CBC
43 minutes ago
- CBC
B.C. reports offer 'road map' for repatriation of Indigenous items, remains
A pair of reports out of British Columbia are detailing the complex, expensive and under-resourced process of repatriating Indigenous historical items or remains back to their homes. The studies, developed in partnership between the First Peoples' Cultural Council and K'yuu Enterprise Corporation, call for changes including the creation of a centralized body to facilitate the work, a repatriation accreditation program for museums and other institutions, and "substantial" funding and support from the provincial and federal government. Gretchen Fox, an anthropologist and the council's acting heritage manager, said the growing interest in the moral and ethical requirement for repatriation shows resources are needed to set out steps that could be used in B.C. and in other jurisdictions. "There was a need for a way forward, or a road map — what's involved in repatriation, what's the history of it," she said. "To have a really good understanding and documentation of what's been lost, where these ancestors and belongings are held today, and what kind of work specifically is involved in locating them." Researchers with the K'yuu Enterprise Corporation did a survey and found more than 2,500 B.C. First Nation human remains and upwards of 100,000 belongings are known to be held in 229 institutions — including museums and universities — around the world. Fox said the survey had only a 50-per-cent response rate. "So, we know that the numbers are much higher, and those numbers are just for ancestors and belongings that are associated with B.C. First Nations." The main report breaks down repatriation into a four-step process starting with planning and research, followed by repatriation itself and the long-term caretaking of the items or remains. It says 60 per cent of First Nations surveyed have already spent more than $1 million on repatriation work to date. "Since the Canadian government has yet to commit to dedicated repatriation legislation, policy and funding, many [B.C. First Nations] are reliant on grants and other mechanisms to support their repatriation work," it says. The report says when applying for grant programs that aren't dedicated to repatriation, nations are forced to focus on strict funding criteria and narrow timelines rather than their own needs. In 2016, B.C. became the first province in Canada to offer a grant to help pay for repatriation. While the report calls that funding "welcome," it says the money has not kept pace with requests and that repatriation in Canada is "severely underfunded." Fox said there are a range of costs, from paying personnel to the technology required to research where items are located or the cost to store them properly. A companion report offers what Fox calls a "really high level" cost estimate. It suggests that if all 204 First Nations in the province were funded over five years to participate in repatriation at various stages it would cost an estimated $663 million. Fox said the number is not a request for funding, but rather an attempt to test the model and "show the monumental, significant costs of this." The report says repatriation is also an economic and social driver with benefits like health and healing, jobs, and community development. "It has spiritual and cultural impacts of reconnecting with belongings and carrying out responsibilities to ancestors and It's so meaningful, even if it's engaged at a slower pace, or on a smaller scale," Fox said. She said having a First Nation-led centralized organizing body and programming to facilitate repatriation would be helpful to provide the opportunity to pool experience and resources. Inviting museums and other holding institutions would also be beneficial, Fox said. In 2023, a totem pole that had been on display at the Royal B.C. Museum was brought back to Bella Coola, located almost 1,000 kilometres northwest of Vancouver. It was taken in 1913 and became part of the museum's collection. Representatives of the Nuxalk Nation said at the time that they had been trying to get the totem and other artifacts back since 2019. Also in 2023, a memorial totem pole belonging to members of the Nisga'a Nation was returned from the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, where it had been for nearly a century. Last year, the Heiltsuk Nation celebrated the return of a chief's seat that had been in the Royal B.C. Museum since 1911. Fox said an accreditation program for institutions that hold First Nations' remains and belongings could teach about repatriation and the practices and protocols needed. She said there is still work to be done, but over the last few decades more institutions are recognizing the "moral and ethical imperative to make things right. That these belongings and ancestors were stolen or taken under duress from First Nations communities, and that the right thing to do is to facilitate their return." "At the same time, First Nations repatriation experts are training the next generations within their communities, and they're building relationships with institutions. And so we are seeing some significant movement and recognition that this is the right thing to do."
