For all the Canadian soccer fans hoping to make short hops across the border to catch World Cup games in 2022, there is disappointment. The United States’ bid to host the tourney was unsuccessful, as FIFA awarded the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 tournament to Qatar.

The first domino has fallen. Wednesday, Seattle made Fredy Montero, the franchise's top scorer, it's newest Designated Player. Not counting Landon Donovan's grandfathered deal with the Los Angeles Galaxy, the Colombian star becomes the first MLS regular to graduate from the normal salaried ranks to DP status. MLS knew this was coming. When the new DP rule was rolled out on April 1, allowing each team to have a maximum of three slots, the league knew that its member clubs would soon need to use spots so they could retain existing players, not just to attract players from Europe and South America.

Bas Ent could be in Toronto FC colours next season. Ent, a 23-year-old from Zaandam, Holland, has received serious interest from TFC, who gave the pacy winger a 45-minute trial in a friendly with EPL side Bolton Wanderers earlier this year. Dutch media has reported that Ent has already signed with the MLS club but there are plenty of details to work out before he officially goes to Toronto. “He is not eligible until we let him go,” says Mike Mossel, co-owner of Dayton Dutch Lions FC, the USL Premier Development League team that Ent played on last season. “The question is what does Toronto want to pay for him and how much do we want for him?”

Vancouver Whitecaps and EA Sports — maker of FIFA 11, the hottest-selling sports video game, well, ever — announced a new partnership that will see EA promoting the Whitecaps through its technology, and putting in support for the development of grassroots soccer in British Columbia. The Whitecaps become the first pro soccer team in North America to become an official partner of EA.

The referees are on strike in Scotland. They have had it. They’ve had it with the criticisms of coaches and players. They’re tired of being made the scapegoats whenever a close decision goes against a fiery manager with an axe to grind. Good for them. They’ve gone on strike, leaving the Scottish FA scrambling to find refs for this week’s matches. Polish and Portuguese refs who the SFA thought it had secured to officiate this weekend’s games have gone back home. Scotland did find enough foreign refs to keep the Premier League going, so fans could be treated another weekly instalment of Rangers, Celtic and Everybody Else.

While we are months away from finalizing the format for the 2011 Nutrilite Canadian Championship, we know this much; the chance of the Canadian Soccer Association going with a four-team full round-robin is nil. Under that system, each of the four clubs would need to play six games. There’s no time in either the MLS or NASL schedule to make that happen. Remember that a winner needs to be crowned before the summer, when CONCACAF needs the entrant for Champions League qualifying-round play. So, what is the likely course — and that is what is on the table at the moment — is a simple knockout Cup tourney. The four teams would be seeded; TFC would get the No. 1 slot, and would play the newbies, FC Edmonton. Vancouver and Montreal would play in the other series. The winners would face off in a true Cup final.

Will more and more teams be willing to give away their draft picks? Are NCAA players becoming less and less relevant year after year? MLS now allows its member teams to bring in as many players from their academies as they want, allowing teams to bring in players when they are teens and skip the NCAA route altogether.

The shop window featured a heck of a lot of high-priced talent. The Vancouver Whitecaps weren’t buying.

Even though both the Montreal Impact and Vancouver Whitecaps are moving to MLS, both are retaining their memberships in the second-division NASL. NASL chief executive officer Aaron Davidson confirmed that MLS is aware that both the Impact and Whitecaps are retaining their memberships in NASL, even though Vancouver makes its debut as an MLS city in 2011 and Montreal makes the move in 2012. “They can still have teams in NASL; those teams can have synergies with the MLS franchises or they can be standalone teams,” said Davidson Tuesday, over the phone from Paraguay.

Here are some of the interesting possibilities out there for Vancouver and Portland in Wednesday’s expansion draft. Here are five names that really jumped out on the lists of unprotected players released Monday.