Football Canada membership elects three to the Board of Directors

MADANI, MRAKIC, & YOUNG TO BEGIN THREE-YEAR TERMS AS NEW DIRECTORS

June 28, 2023 – Football Canada’s membership elected three new members to its Board of Directors at Wednesday’s 2023 Annual General Meeting. Arash Madani, Tara Mrakic, and Paul Young were elected director-at-large for a three-year term and will join the leadership group led by President Jim Mullin.

Madani, from Truro, Nova Scotia, is a nationally recognized sports reporter who has covered football from both sides of the business, first as a communications director for CFL clubs in Ottawa and Winnipeg before jumping back in front of the TV cameras as a national sports reporter with Sportsnet. In 2017 he won the George Gross Award from Sports Media Canada as the country’s top sports broadcaster. Madani also served the community in volunteer capacities as a member of the Program Advisory Council for Centennial College’s sports media program and as a moderator of Football Canada’s Diversity Task Force series in 2020-2021. This will be Madani’s first-ever term on the Football Canada Board of Directors.

Mrakic, who will also serve her first-ever term as director-at-large with Football Canada, is a celebrated flag football coach and advocate for diversity from Lasalle, Quebec. She has been the Vanier College Cheetahs Flag Football team head coach since 2011. During that time, she earned Coach of the Year honours from the Réseau des Sports étudiants du Québec (RSEQ) three times while rebuilding the program and developing a community for Flag Football in the area. A graduate of the Business Administration and Management program at Vanier College, Mrakic has also committed her time and efforts to increasing representation for women and members of the BIPOC community through her work as the Executive Secretary of the Black Canadian Coaches Association (BCCA) and her involvement in their Black Female Mentorship Program. 

Paul Young is based in Ottawa, Ontario, and has been heavily involved in the Ontario football community for several years. A computer engineer by trade, Young led Football Ontario through the pandemic, serving as their President and guiding governance revisions. He is a Football Ontario certified coach evaluator, learning facilitator, and master coach developer. While Young is no stranger to volunteer board work, this will mark his first term with the Football Canada Board of Directors.

Football Canada’s Board of Directors is a policy governance board composed of a president, nine directors-at-large, and an appointed director. The newly elected directors will join Jim Mullin (President), Jay Hetherington, Dale Williams, James Fowler, Jason Lafferty, Steve Figner and Chantal Lussier.

Football Canada would also like to thank exiting members, the Honourable Lois Mitchell, Bryan Crawford, Neil Donnelly, and Ted Goveia, for contributing to the Board of Directors and the football community.