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In a Hail Mary attempt to get public sentiment back on its side, Canada Soccer released details of the proposed collective bargaining agreement to its senior national teams Thursday, just hours before four prominent members of the women’s team were to testify in Ottawa.
Christine Sinclair, Janine Beckie, Sophie Schmidt and Quinn testified before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, chaired by Liberal MP Hedy Fry, for two hours; airing their grievances against Canada Soccer to a number of federal politicians, some who seemed ill-informed and under-prepared.
The committee, for example, was surprised to learn Canada Soccer could be open to sanctions by FIFA for its involvement in the affairs of the sport’s national governing body. This is a well-known FIFA policy and one which it has acted on previously.
Canada Soccer knows it and the players know it, which is why it is important for the federal government to tread carefully going forward.
“FIFA has a policy in place to help avoid players getting government involved to overthrow their associations,” Beckie explained to Conservative MP Rachel Thomas. “It is normally associated with smaller associations, and the concern that was brought up was that players were asking government to step in and aid in the situation, which was not the case.
“As players, we had not asked for government interference. So, we held off on relying on the offer for a financial audit (from Sports Canada), because that concerned was raised by Canada Soccer, because if that were to happen or something similar, then potentially we could be kicked out of the World Cup.”
The four players were summoned to Ottawa to testify before the committee on a labour dispute, which has garnered international attention and painted Canada Soccer in a very bad light.
The dispute ended up costing former Canada Soccer president Nick Bontis his job, replaced by ex-Olympian Charmaine Crooks.
Sinclair, Beckie, Schmidt and Quinn all spoke eloquently in reiterating their case against Canada Soccer, who cut the budget to the national teams’ programs as the women prepare to compete in the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup this summer in Australia and New Zealand.
While sympathetic to the plight of the women’s team, nothing of substance came out of the hearing from the politicians, other than the promise to look into the situation further.
The women’s team is looking for equal treatment and compensation with the men’s team, who qualified for the FIFA World Cup for the first time in 36 years and participated at the 2022 tournament in Qatar this past November. Canada will compete in the 2026 World Cup as a co-host with the United States and Mexico.
The women, meanwhile, are defending Olympic champions and considered among the contenders to win the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. Yet, leading into the tournament, the women’s budget has been cut and they are not being compensated equally with the men.
“The success of the national teams is inspiring the entire country and the future should be brighter than ever,” Sinclair began. “However, as the popularity, interest and growth in the women’s game has swept the globe, our most pain-staking battle has been with our federation and trying to gain fair and equitable treatment in the way we’re supported and the way we are paid.
“For over a decade, members of the women’s national team have asked Canada Soccer for detailed discloser of its finances and the compensation provided to the men’s national team. Some information has been provided, but it has never been enough to allow the women’s team to understand the breakdown for revenue and the amount allocated to both programs.”
According to Sinclair, the lack of transparency has forced members of the women’s team to negotiate in the dark.
In its statement before the hearing, Canada Soccer said the new CBA would see both the men and women paid the same amount per match, and both would share equally in competition prize money.
The men were involved in a dispute this summer over prize money for qualifying for the World Cup in Qatar.
Canada Soccer received $9-million US in prize money for qualifying for the 32-team tournament. The men’s team went on to boycott an exhibition game against Panama in Vancouver over the dispute, which was eventually settled.
The women’s team also threatened a walkout at the SheBelieves Cup last month in the United States, but were threatened with legal action if they did not participate. Instead, they played the tournament in protest, wearing purple T-shirts before the game with the words, “Enough is Enough,” written on them.
The total prize money for the Women’s World Cup was doubled to $60-million this year, which Canada will get a portion, depending how far they go into the tournament. Prize money for the men’s World Cup was $440 million.
FIFA generated over $7.5-billion off the men’s World Cup over the past four years.
The women’s World Cup is expected to generate $400-million, which would allow the 32-team tournament to break even according to FIFA, after the 2015 and 2019 tournaments sustained financial losses.
“We’ve been negotiating in good faith and want to get to a resolution with our national teams,” Canada Soccer general secretary Earl Cochrane said in a statement. “In order to get there, we need both of our national teams to agree. Our women deserve to be paid equally and they deserve the financial certainty going into the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.”
The four players were not impressed with the timing of the statement by Canada Soccer.
“We feel quite disrespected by the way they went about their business this afternoon,” Beckie said. “We also don’t feel that it’s the right place to stoop down to that level and we’re here to speak about this issue. We believe what was talked about in good-faith bargaining between the Canada Soccer association and our association, should have stayed between the players’ association and the players association.
“So, we feel quite disrespected that it didn’t stay behind closed doors before that agreement was actually signed. There were terms and numbers and pieces in their statement today that has not even been communicated to us.”
Email: dvandiest@postmedia.com
On Twitter: @DerekVanDiest
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