MLSE CEO's vision became a reality through cunning, perseverance . . . and plenty of money.
FRANK GUNN / THE CANADIAN PRESS
Jermain Defoe gets a warm welcome from MLSE CEO Tim Leiweke during the English star's introductory press conference back on Jan. 13.
In MLSE CEO Tim Leiweke’s first job interview, he asked the heads of Bell and Rogers if they’d be willing to stake him on a big soccer purchase.
“A Beckham deal,” he told them.
When they said, “Yes,” Leiweke agreed to take the job.
He’d be shepherding the Leafs and the Raptors, but Leiweke’s short-term fixation was pulling Toronto FC out of the shallow grave previous management regimes had buried it in.
He arrived in June. Six months later, Leiweke had committed more than $100 million of MLSE’s money — twice what he’d originally asked for — and permanently altered the economics of a major North American sports league.
The process that would end with the signing of international stars Jermain Defoe and Michael Bradley was more than a cheque-writing exercise.
It was a multi-tiered charm offensive, an intricate wooing process that involved flowers from Drake, dummy negotiations, break-ups and an ‘accidental’ meeting with LeBron James.
Leiweke is famous for these elaborate courtships.
While still in L.A. working on behalf of the Kings, he ferreted out free-agent centre Brad Richards’ two favourite things — 1970s rock and decent plonk.
The Kings gave Richards a vintage guitar signed by The Eagles and a $1,000 bottle of Napa red. He eventually chose the Rangers.
“It was a good bottle of wine,” Leiweke says mournfully. “I wanted it back.”
Historically, that has not been the MLSE way. They make offers. Players make rational financial decisions.
Leiweke knew that in order to lure a top European player to the soccer’s New World, he’d need more than good sense. He’d need romance.
It started with a cleansing fire. In early September, Leiweke fired nearly everyone at Toronto FC. The only man left standing was coach, Ryan Nelsen.
Leiweke pressed Nelsen for names to add. Nelsen submitted a list of 100 international players he’d like to buy. Between them, they whittled it down to 10.
In mid-September, Leiweke hired a young league executive, Tim Bezbatchenko, to be his GM. Nelsen had credibility as a former player in the English Premier League. Bezbatchenko understood the serpentine bureaucracy of Major League Soccer. Leiweke brought contacts, a salesman’s mentality and a bag of cash.
They worked their list together. No name was off the table. Leiweke encouraged everyone to think big.
“(Bezbatchenko) must’ve walked out of that first interview and thought, ‘This guy is certifiable,’ ” Leiweke said.
In mid-October, the three men went shopping in Europe. They had six names in mind.
Jermain Defoe and Michael Bradley receive warm and loud welcome from chanting Toronto FC fans at a press conference in Toronto.
Overseas shopping
They landed in Milan on Oct. 12. Their first meeting was in a restaurant outside the city with Bologna striker Rolando Bianchi.
At this point, the team was looking for an A player and a less expensive B player. Bianchi was in the B column.
He impressed in the interview, and more so the next day.
Despite having to play a game, the Italian woke up early, went to his family’s vineyard and drove an hour back into Milan to drop off several cases of Bianchi wine.
“A full-bodied red, had some legs to it,” Bezbatchenko recalled.
Bianchi would nonetheless prove too expensive. To fill the B spot, the team would eventually turn to a 24-year-old Brazilian, Gilberto.
The next day, they travelled to Parma. The city was in the midst of celebrating the 100th anniversary of the local football club. Arranging those celebrations was Giuseppe Bozzo, a well-connected local agent.
The Toronto group met with Bozzo in a city-centre low-rise to discuss two of his clients — Juventus’ Fabio Quagliarella and Genoa’s Alberto Gilardino.
Getting an Italian to appeal to that ethnic constituency was one of Leiweke’s early obsessions. The meeting focused on Gilardino, a rangy national team member who Leiweke believed would make a splash on and off the field.
The room was crowded with a dozen men, people moving in and out — of the room, and English.
Bezbatchenko recalls thinking that it wasn’t that much unlike doing deals in North America, “ . . . but with better prosciutto.”
On Oct. 14, they arrived at the real target — Defoe.
They flew to London and travelled to the training grounds of Tottenham Hotspur. Unlike Italy, they would meet with only one person — Spurs chairman Daniel Levy.
In a world full of executive spendthrifts, Levy had built the reputation as someone who always won his deals. He’d cemented it a month earlier in selling Gareth Bale to Real Madrid for a record $157 million fee.
It was Leiweke who first approached Levy about American star Clint Dempsey. Once the league got involved, it was agreed Dempsey would move to Seattle instead of Toronto. But there was history between the men, and a respectful wariness.
Leiweke began with misdirection, asking about players he had no interest in. He moved on to a business discussion — Tottenham is in need of a new arena, and Levy wants Leiweke’s help on the project.
At things were wrapping up, as an afterthought, Leiweke asked about Defoe. The 30-year-old Englishman was a remarkable talent, but had fallen afoul of Spurs’ then coach. Was he available?
Levy responded flatly: “No. We’re not interested in moving Jermain.”
Leiweke pressed, “But if you were, how would you do it?”
Levy: “I wouldn’t”
Levy would not have known that before he’d entered the room, Leiweke had already talked to Defoe’s agent, Struan Marshall.
“I told him not to waste his time,” Marshall said. “I was a bit self-conscious about it. At that point, I thought the chances were perhaps 10 per cent, or less.”
But as is his habit, Leiweke pressed ahead.
“(Levy) told us he didn’t need to move any players. I said, ‘But what if you did?’ And he gave us a number. An incredibly high number. I didn’t laugh, but I did give him a look, like, here we go.”
He asked Levy for permission to meet with the player and gauge his interest. Levy agreed.
“We knew this was our perfect guy,” Leiweke said. “But the club’s telling us he’s not for sale, his agent’s telling us that talking to him is a waste of time.”
Thinking back on it, Leiweke smiles — “So I thought, ‘I like my chances.’ ”
There were two more meetings — with Chelsea’s Frank Lampard (more of a courtesy call since L.A. holds his MLS rights) and with agents connected to Celtic’s Georgios Samaras. Discussions were also ongoing with Chelsea’s Samuel Eto’o.
But Leiweke now had his focus.
A meeting was arranged with Marshall and Defoe in the lobby bar of the Mayfair hotel. They brought props. First, a custom mini iPad in TFC colours with a pitch video designed for Defoe. They gave him a personalized club jersey. Nelsen and Defoe talked about their playing days together. Bezbatchenko and Leiweke described the vision. Defoe was animated, asking questions.
He was apparently moved by the fact that all three TFC decision makers had flown over to see him.
“In Europe, I don’t think players get that, no matter how much they’re paid,” Bezbatchenko said. “At some level, they want to be wanted (a pause) it also helps when you can pay them money.”
It wasn’t until they left the Mayfair that Marshall understood the impact the presentation had had on his client.
“Jermain and I went for dinner. I noticed instantly that it was different. As we sat down, he said, ‘I fancy it.’ ”
Marshall called Leiweke later that night to tell him that, from the player’s perspective at least, the deal now had a real chance. Fifty-fifty, Marshall guessed.
On Oct. 17, they flew home.
Two possibilities
Weeks before he’d gone to Europe, Leiweke had presented the business case for buying a major soccer star to a full meeting of the MLSE board. The board signed off on a blanket ‘A Player’ purchase for anywhere up to $50 million.
Now there were two potentials — Defoe and Gilardino — and things were about to get complicated.
By the end of October, Leiweke was pecking away at Levy via email. They talked every other day, nothing specific.
All along, Gilardino was the safety valve. Leiweke only wanted the Italian if negotiations with Defoe foundered.
Two weeks after the European trip, Gilardino’s agent, Bozzo, flew over to do business in New York. It was suggested that on the way back, he stop in Toronto. Bozzo agreed.
He arrived on the day of a Leafs game. Though they’d agreed to meet the next day, Bozzo was convinced to come to the hockey game and see the facility.
Leiweke and Bozzo sat together for a period. Bozzo was distant. Leiweke had arranged that several prominent local Italians — “supporters of what we’re doing here” — would just happen to be in the Chairman’s Suite that night. Leiweke dropped Bozzo off with them. They all disappeared for an hour. When Bozzo returned, they’d warmed him up.
“They’re all going to go golfing the next day, they’re going to dinner,” Leiweke laughed. “They’re negotiating the deal for me. I had to call a timeout.”
The following morning, Leiweke and Bozzo worked out the rough outlines of Gilardino’s contract. Bozzo left Canada with a handwritten agreement in principle.
Then, things got very European.
A second sports agency contacted MLSE to complain that they, rather than Bozzo, were Gilardino’s representatives. This caused a week’s worth of confusion.
As best MLSE understands it, Gilardino had fired Bozzo over another failed move. Bozzo travelled to Toronto in any case, playing things cool while negotiating for a client he no longer worked for. Once he returned to Italy with a multi-million dollar offer in hand, Gilardino re-hired him.
Bozzo did not respond to an email seeking comment.
“This kind of stuff happens all the time in soccer,” Bezbatchenko said. “But this took balls.”
Gilardino’s team, Genoa, wanted to sell. In Leiweke’s mind, he now had Gilardino on a shelf. He could pull him down at any time. He turned back to Defoe.
He could not negotiate with the player — that’s tampering (though it’s a widespread practice). So he focused on Defoe’s closest advisor, his mother, Sandra.
MLSE invited Sandra for a week in Toronto in early November. Three staffers were assigned to care for her. She was put up at the Ritz. When she got to her room, there were flowers waiting. From Drake.
“Are these really from Drake?” Sandra asked.
Leiweke assured her they were.
They brought her to the ACC on the morning of Nov. 5 before a Raptors game with the Miami Heat. As part of the tour, Sandra visited the hockey dressing room. A Leafs’ jersey emblazoned with Defoe’s name was hung in every stall.
While there, staffers tried to connect Sandra to her son via Skype. They had trouble getting a steady connection. Eventually, they had to move out onto the ice.
Out in the hallway that runs from the Leafs’ dressing room to the basketball visitors’ quarters, LeBron James was waiting to accidentally bump into Sandra.
Leiweke had reached out to James’ manager, Maverick Carter, to ask for the favour.
Still fiddling with the laptop, she missed her window. James returned to begin his pre-game routine.
He’d do his part later. During a break in play in the Raptors game, he approached Sandra, who was sitting courtside with Leiweke. As he walked toward her, James wagged his finger in a familiar, teasing way. Sandra goggled. The most famous athlete on the continent leaned in to suggest Defoe would be happy in Canada.
Sandra turned again, delighted: “That was LeBron James!”
“Everyone loves Toronto,” Leiweke said.
After Sandra left, Leiweke sent Drake back in. The rap star was out on tour. Leiweke worked out a detailed pitch that Drake would make to Defoe over the phone. Defoe would later describe the call as “surreal.” This holistic come-on worked. Within a week, negotiations became serious.
Leiweke and Bezbatchenko were now negotiating two parallel deals, knowing only one of them would come off.
Levy and Leiweke traded 40 emails in the three days beginning Nov. 11. The deal was functionally done by the 13th. After that, Leiweke agreed to personal terms with Defoe. In all, it would cost $50 million.
Bringing Defoe to Toronto required nine separate contracts — terms with the league, terms with the team, a marketing deal, etc. One is a subsidy from Major League Soccer for Defoe’s salary in anticipation of a rise in shared revenues around the league because of ticket sales. They also had to find a place for Defoe and his entire family to live.
The paperwork was completed on Dec. 16. It wasn’t until that day, roughly six weeks after his agent had agreed a deal in principle, that Gilardino found out he wasn’t moving to Toronto.
“Hard feelings? Sure,” said Bezbatchenko. “But if he’d really wanted to come here, one thing they could have done was come down in price.”
The big deal was done, but there was already a small sense of letdown. The story had leaked early in the British press and been widely discussed. There would be no splash value to the announcement, which had to wait until the opening of the January transfer window for a formal announcement.
Their work done and their money spent, everyone separated for the Christmas break.
Bradley up next
Some time after Christmas Day, Bezbatchenko got a text message from Ron Waxman, a soccer agent and friend from his days at the league, asking to talk. Bezbatchenko was home in Columbus with his family. He didn’t respond.
On the 30th, Waxman texted again, more urgent this time.
As Bezbatchenko recalls it, Waxman said, “I brought up the possibility of coming back to MLS with (his client) Michael (Bradley) and he thought it would be a good time.”
He asked if Toronto FC was interested. Bezbatchenko was. Upon arriving at the club, he’d put the U.S. and Roma star on top of his personal wish list. But this decision had to be made at the board level.
As it turns out, Waxman was fishing on his client’s behalf.
What had Bradley told you about going to Toronto FC?
“Absolutely nothing,” Waxman said. “This was completely my idea.”
Once he had Toronto on the line, he would convince the player of the move’s wisdom. Toronto had the money and — Waxman believed — the will to make Bradley their centerpiece.
Bezbatchenko phoned Leiweke at his home in Vail, Colo. He was about to head to the NHL’s Winter Classic, to be played on New Year’s Day. Leiweke told him to pursue it, and that he would approach the league. Twenty minutes later, he sent a far more excited email back.
“It had started to sink in,” Bezbatchenko said.
Getting Bradley was more fraught than Defoe. Here was an American national team member wanting to come home. Every team in the league would covet him. MLS is unique in that it operates on a single-entity ownership. Teams are not independent — they are franchises. The league often acts as an over-involved parent. They’ve scuttled Toronto FC deals in the past.
Leiweke went to the commissioner, Don Garber, who agreed that getting Bradley back would be a huge coup. No player of his caliber, and yet so young (26), had ever left Europe for North America.
All the teams in the league were notified. A hasty bidding process came together. It got emotional. Leiweke recalled raging at MLS vice-president Todd Durbin during an hour-long call in the midst of the Leafs-Red Wings outdoor game.
Afterward, Leiweke’s wife, Bernadette, turned to him and said, “Oh, the dark side.”
Through a spokesperson, Durbin refused to discuss the deal or its process.
According to Waxman, only one other team was prepared to consider the $50 million it would take to get Bradley. Bradley wasn’t interested in going to that club, regardless of his wage.
Despite the league’s reservations, Toronto had their window.
One small problem — money.
Leiweke would have to go back to the board. Individually, he approached major shareholder Larry Tanenbaum, Bell CEO George Cope and Rogers family scion, Edward Rogers. All agreed. The expenditure was later formalized during a five-minute phone call.
Bezbatchenko did the deal on the phone with Waxman while walking the treadmill at Toronto’s empty training facility in Downsview. It took them three straight days. The deal was agreed between all parties on Jan. 9.
Defoe and Bradley were sitting on a podium at Real Sports Bar & Grill on Jan. 13.
It is a huge financial commitment. Impossible, really.
At $10 million apiece, Defoe and Bradley both broke MLS’ record transfer fee. Toronto now has the highest payroll in MLS’ 20-year history.
Leiweke’s next move is a massive expansion of BMO Field. He remains convinced that MLSE can recoup its investment, based on its own proprietary research.
“Soccer has the chance to be the No. 2 sport in this country, and in short order. What it needed was something like this.”
But this was plainly about more than economics.
Leiweke has never played or coached. He’s never expressed any interest in the tactics of the game. When he talks soccer (and he likes to talk soccer), he means the business of the sport.
What appeals to him is its Wild West-ness. He calls it “the free-for-all.”
There is no collective bargaining agreement to hamper him, no rules that anyone follows. There are unlimited opponents — executives, agents, teams from a dozen global leagues. There’s also his own league, trying to slow him down.
We have no idea if this will work out at field level. But Leiweke’s already won his match.
As he recalls all this in his office 16 floors above the ACC ice, he is most animated when he considers the consequences of what he’s done — not for himself, but for his competitors.
“There are management and owners in MLS today who aren’t really happy with us,” Leiweke said. “We changed their rate card quite dramatically.”
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