Canadian soccer stars fight to make women’s game ‘a better place than we found it’

OTTAWA—Room 315 of the Wellington Building was filling up nicely before the politicians and their helpers and handlers arrived. A public gallery took their seats, two rows behind the afternoon’s guests, already seated and exchanging last-minute notes. As galleries go, it was on the smaller side, just three strong: a father and his two young daughters, both decked out in Canada women’s soccer team replica jerseys.

The elder girl had “Sinclair” and the number 12 on her back and the jersey was signed by Canada’s greatest player, so perhaps she had briefly got this close to Christine Sinclair before. There would be nothing brief about Thursday’s encounter however.

For the guts of two and a half hours in front of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, Sinclair and teammates Janine Beckie, Sophie Schmidt and Quinn made what felt like their most seminal step in reshaping the future of the sport for the next generation, for those two girls physically behind them and the thousands more who will follow. They did so through words, delivering the most devastating indictment of the past and present of the game in Canada, of the federation charged with nurturing it and of Canadian Soccer Business, the third party profiting off this era of unprecedented glories on the back of a murky deal with Canada Soccer. By the end, this felt like a day that could separate soccer here into a then and a now.

First, though, there were visitors. Adam van Koeverden swung by and took a knee beside former Olympic teammates. “I’m not on this committee,” the Liberal MP said as he crouched down between Sinclair and Quinn, “I just wanted to come say hi.”

He should have hung around. He missed a hell of a show. This was as emphatic a performance as any the quartet, who boast a combined 732 international caps, have been involved in on a field of play. They were concise and composed but passionate and unwavering, at times the clarity and focus of their testimony jarring with some bluff and bluster from the political brigade. They didn’t let any of it knock them off the task at hand, the same one that has been at hand forever but which some day soon they might be free of.

Canada Soccer and those who run it now and in the recent past were stripped bare, the players meticulously peeling off the layers of dysfunction and letting the country see the naked incompetence and arrogance of the national federation clearer than ever. It was a shellacking. The only wonder is that it has taken this long to arrive.

It may have been the last appointment of the work day but the MPs were locked in, listening intently, shaking heads and visibly wincing at starker moments of testimony, of which there were plenty.

“We have been successful not because of our federation but in spite of our federation, for many years,” said Beckie, the afternoon’s star performer, delivering one of the truest lines. “We just got to a point where we are so sick and tired of having to fight the same battle and have the same conversations and scratch and claw for transparency.”

Canada Soccer, which had shed itself of hapless president Nick Bontis in recent weeks and promised to be different, had reverted to type and tried to hamstring its own players by releasing a mountain of detail about negotiations and CBA offerings to both the women and men mere hours before the testimony of Sinclair and Co. Having steadfastly refused to negotiate in public, the organization was suddenly letting it all out. Want transparency? Here, let us smother you in it. Over 1500 words of it, yet as many unanswered questions. Most pressingly, where would the money suddenly come from given the swingeing budget cuts enacted in recent months? It was a sly and cynical move and called out as much.

“How disgusting was that?” inquired Conservative MP Kevin Waugh, wearing a purple shirt and tie in solidarity with the players who chose the same colour of protest last month.

“We feel quite disrespected by the way they went about their business this afternoon,” Beckie responded. “But we don’t feel that it’s the right place to stoop to that level.”

That level had been made glaringly, gallingly clear from the very outset when all four shared the 10 minutes allotted for their opening remarks but Sinclair immediately delivered the day’s starkest anecdote.

“Our sport is at a critical moment,” warned soccer’s leading international goal scorer. “The future should be brighter than ever but our most painstaking battle has been with our own federation. I’ve never been more insulted than I was by Nick Bontis last year. I was tasked with outlining our compensation ask on behalf of the players. The then-president of Canada Soccer listened to what I had to say and later in the meeting referred back to it as, quote, ’What was it Christine was bitching about?’ ”

Eyes widened and a couple of mouths dropped but such an attitude will have come as little surprise to anyone paying attention. After Thursday there’s more attention than ever. Bontis has skulked off to one side but the Heritage Committee is adamant he will sit in front of them in short order, March 20 to be exact. If Canada Soccer executives weren’t clear enough on the hostile welcome that awaits, Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu laid it out for them. The committee’s ability “to shine a light on an organization” can show up harsh realities. “When Hockey Canada first came here they thought they had a communications problem,” she said before noting the executive board exodus that soon followed.

The woman who replaced Bontis on an interim basis wasn’t spared. It was strikingly clear from the testimony of all four that Charmaine Crooks is not trusted. Sinclair revealed the team had zero contact from Crooks after her promotion — until Thursday’s CBA dump. “Part of the old guard,” said Quinn. Damning. It was all so damning. Schmidt’s emotional observation that youth structures are worse now than when she came through two decades ago struck a chord.

There were moments of levity. Quinn delivered a delicious deadpan line to the team’s support crew who filled in during training sessions when budget cuts limited last month’s squad to just 20. “I’d like to applaud our staff members for how well they play soccer but …” John Herdman’s men were collateral damage when Liberal MP Chris Bittle tried to compare the world rankings of the respective teams. “Are they in the 40s?” wondered Sinclair.

Some members briefly tried to turn all of this into a party of political football but it didn’t wash. Not today. Liberal MP Anthony Housefather, particularly impressive, brought renewed focus and asked whether former Canada Soccer president Victor Montagliani, now FIFA VP and a key figure in the CSB deal, should be called for testimony. “Yes,” Sinclair said in an instant.

On the way out the players were asked what the message would be to to the two girls who sat behind them and the rest of the next generation. “Keep training,” Beckie said. “We’re fighting this fight for you, making this a better place than we found it.”

A then and a now? Sure felt like it.

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