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But CFL 2.0 obviously isn’t going to wait. This is the present and the future, or at least as long as Ambrosie is driving the bus.

“I feel like a bit of an interested bystander,” said Calgary head coach Dave Dickenson. “I get Randy’s vision and I’m all for it. I’m anxious to see how it all fits. There are great athletes across the world. We’re crazy if we don’t think there are athletes in Japan, Australia. How do you find them, how do you get them interested in Canada? How do you make it a little bit more fair so we don’t have to scout the world and spend all our money doing it? Those are all things I’m sure have come up in league talks.”

Ambrosie has to address those questions even as he dives further into relationships with football federations all over Europe. He said the CFL was a top priority of the German Football League at its annual meeting on Saturday.

Photo by Mark Blinch / THE CANADIAN PRESS

“There was a real push to get further into this relationship with us, how to get more of their very best players here next year. There was talk about how we might take a more systematic approach, more of a focus on training their kids for this event. Maybe that’s a December kind of focus, rather than in February.”

In an email, GFL chair Carsten Dalkowski confirmed Ambrosie’s take on it.

“GFL team presidents approved the ideas about a close partnership. I guess it’s up to us now (to) make something great out of this.”

It’s a good idea under construction right now. Over time, let’s call it years, it can be something great.

“Everything takes time,” said Sunderland. “One of the (European) players interviewed said we know we’re probably not going to reap the benefits of it, but we’ll lay the foundation so the players after us are going to reap the rewards of it.

“That was refreshing. A lot of those players have jobs and are a bit more mature because of where they are in life, so they see the big picture.”

Ambrosie, a decidedly big-picture guy, would call that a win.

dbarnes@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/sportsdanbarnes