BCBusiness

36 B C B U S I N E S S . C A J U LY/A U G U S T 2 0 24 ENSURING SUCCESS EVENTUALLY, THOUGH, all those hours of kicking the ball around took its toll. Mon- tagliani had four reconstructive surgeries on his ankles and gave up the professional soccer life. He began studies at SFU and graduated with a degree in political sci- ence. He also brushed up on his French and Spanish skills to the point where he's now fluent in four languages (those two plus English and Italian). He wasn't sure what he wanted to do at first. "He's probably going to kill me for tell- ing you this, but he was a flight attendant at one point," laughs Iuele. "He had just fin- ished SFU, and he calls me and says, 'Fren- chy'—that's what he calls me—'I got a job. I'm going to be a flight attendant.' What? In those tiny little aisles pushing the cart? Now it's kind of ironic, because travelling was his first big job and now he travels all the time with his really big job." After that stint, Montagliani applied to work at what was then called the Royal Guardian Insurance Company of Canada, which had an office in downtown Van- couver. "They had a two-year training program, which is unheard of in other industries. They don't usually train people for two minutes," says Montagliani. "It gave me such a great base." He changed jobs a couple of times, first to an independent firm and then to a bro- kerage firm before he was approached by Alex Meier and his partners, who wanted to start their own firm. Today, that's called Axis Insurance and is a national outfit with over 300 employees and 10 offices. Mean- while, Montagliani's side hustle was grow- ing into something a lot larger. MANAGING EXPECTATIONS IN 2002, MONTAGLIANI was approached by his friend William Azzi, then-president of the Vancouver Metro Soccer League. "He said, 'Listen, we need someone with a busi- ness background to join the board of BC Soccer," recalls Montagliani. "I said, 'Well, I don't really want to do it, I'm too busy. But okay, I'll do it for you. But just a year, okay?' It always happens that way." By 2004, Montagliani was the president of the BC Soccer Association and went about revamping the organization from a nonprofit to more of a business. "We had no technical department—I brought one in and professionalized it. And brought in a lot more revenue," he says. According to documents in BC Soccer's heritage archive, when Montagliani came in, the association was generating $1.4 million in revenue and had lost $117,269 in the previous fiscal year. A few years later, the association hit $4.4 million in revenue and reported $186,630 in excess revenue. In those days, after you served as presi- dent of BC Soccer, you were given a board seat at Canada Soccer. Montagliani did that until 2012, when he ran for president of the federal body. "I can say this now, because it doesn't sound so bad, but I knew I was going to win," he says. Canada had just been awarded the 2015 Women's World Cup (which Monta- gliani says was "the first Women's World Cup that showed the world it wasn't about gender, it was about football and that tran- scended gender… And it was the first time a Women's World Cup made money") and Montagliani was at dinner at Vancouver's Il Giardino with Canada Soccer general secretary Peter Montopoli and long-time Olympics executive Walter Sieber. "We had just won the bid for the Women's World Cup and [Sieber] says to me: 'Vic, it's time. The Men's World Cup.' 'Are you kidding me? We just got this one.' 'Yeah, with you as president, that's our opportunity. You're starting to be recog- nized internationally, it's time.' So, I said, 'Okay, let's do it.'" When the plan was made public, pes- simism radiated, not just from those who thought Canada shouldn't host a Men's World Cup, but also from many who con- sidered a bid win implausible. "A guy from the Toronto Star inter- viewed me four months after I became president of Canada Soccer," recalls Mon- tagliani. "I said that we were going to be bidding for the World Cup and he writes in his article, 'This guy is out of his mind, off his rocker.' And that's the one thing we always lack in this country with sports—we never think big. I always hear, 'That's not how we do things in Canada.' To me, that's an excuse, not some badge of honour. Get your head down and work, like every immi- grant that came here. Don't use your pass- port as an excuse, which we do too often." Once Montagliani went to work, he real- ized that it made a lot of sense to approach U.S. Soccer, which had bid multiple times unsuccessfully, about hosting the tourna- ment together. "[Then-U.S. Soccer presi- dent Sunil Gulati] goes, 'Why do I need Canada?' says Montagliani. "I said, 'You just lost the last two bids, got your ass kicked. And you're going to lose again—in fact, we'll beat you. You know why? Because [the other FIFA nations] don't care about stadiums or money. They care about how you make them feel. And they hate your guts, dude.'" Montagliani laughs. "I said those words. Was it true? Maybe not, but I said them to make a point—and to make it clear that they SPORTS

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